A business improvement perspective for moving a coating factory beyond price competition

Improving a coating factory involves more than addressing defects

Improvement on the coating floor may first bring to mind reducing defects, reducing recoating and improving work efficiency.

These are, of course, very important.

For a coating factory to remain customers’ preferred choice over the long term, however, reducing immediate defects is not enough.

Customer requirements are increasing. Quality criteria are becoming stricter. Delivery responsiveness is required. Labor shortages are growing. Safety and environmental requirements cannot be avoided. Price competition is also intensifying.

In this environment, simply saying “we can coat it” or “we can do it cheaply” is a weak basis for a coating factory’s survival.

What is needed is to define the company’s strengths and build them into technical expertise, standards, training and an improvement system.

CoatureVietnam views improvement on the coating floor as a business improvement activity that helps a coating factory remain the preferred choice, as well as improving individual tasks.

A passive approach to work makes price competition more likely

Contract coating factories often receive drawings and specifications from customers and apply coatings exactly as specified.

This arrangement can provide a steady flow of work, but it can also encourage a passive organizational approach.

Coat exactly as the customer requests. Use the specified paint. Meet the set delivery date. Respond passively to price negotiations. Rush to fix defects on the factory floor when they occur.

If this continues, there are fewer opportunities for the company to propose improvements itself.

As a result, customers may increasingly see differences only in price and delivery time.

When differences from competitors are not visible, customers compare prices. When judged on price, the factory floor must work under even tougher conditions. More demands for unrealistic delivery times or low prices make quality defects, rework and operator burden more likely to increase.

A passive approach to work therefore risks increasing the burden on the coating floor and drawing the company into price competition.

Dependence on a particular customer can look stable but also creates risk

A continuing flow of work from a particular customer provides considerable reassurance for factory management.

However, excessive dependence requires attention.

One customer accounts for a large share of sales. Work is concentrated in one industry. There is a large amount of equipment or fixtures dedicated to specific products. The factory is excessively tailored to a particular customer’s specifications. Price changes have to be accepted. Fluctuations in the customer’s production affect the whole factory.

Under these conditions, changes in customer policy, declining demand, changes in purchasing policy, transfers overseas or price pressure can have a major impact on factory management.

Work concentrated on one customer can also lock equipment and working methods into a fixed pattern, making new work harder to accommodate.

Stable business relationships matter. In the long term, however, it is important to review the customer mix and order portfolio, and make the company’s expertise applicable to other customers as well.

Knowing what you do well matters more than saying you can do everything

A coating factory needs to clarify its strengths to be selected by customers.

Simply saying “we can coat it” makes differentiation difficult. “We can handle anything” may also seem convenient, but excessive complexity on the factory floor makes quality, delivery and profitability difficult to manage.

The important point is to clarify the areas in which the company is strong.

Examples of strengths include the following.

• Strong capability in demanding appearance quality
• Strong capability in rust protection and corrosion protection coatings
• Ability to handle many product types in small quantities
• Ability to meet short delivery times
• Strong capability in powder coating
• Consistent quality control for solvent-based coating
• Expertise in film thickness control
• Ability to support Japanese customers
• Established quality records and reporting systems
• Ability to propose process improvements
• Strong capability in safety and environmental requirements

Clearly defined strengths make it easier to propose solutions to customers.

The company can explain why customers should choose this factory, beyond price alone.

In-house expertise means more than specialized equipment

In-house expertise may bring to mind specialized coating equipment, special paints or advanced automation equipment.

These are, of course, important too.

However, in-house expertise is determined by more than equipment and materials.

For a coating factory, it also includes capabilities such as the following.

• Consistently achieving the required film thickness
• Operating conditions that reduce appearance defects
• Control methods connecting surface preparation and coating
• Proper use of paint and thinner
• Control of drying conditions
• Ability to analyze defect causes
• Ability to define clear inspection criteria
• An operator training system
• Control methods for reducing recoating
• Ability to document quality for explanation to customers

In-house expertise is workplace experience converted into a system that can be reproduced.

If it exists only in an experienced operator’s head, it is weak as company expertise. It becomes company expertise only when accumulated as operating conditions, inspection criteria, training materials, defect response records and improvement histories.

Without accumulated expertise, the factory floor depends on individuals

Coating is a process that readily depends on human judgment and feel.

Experienced operators’ knowledge is very valuable. However, keeping that experience within a few individuals does not improve stability across the factory.

Examples include the following situations.

• Difficult products cannot be coated without an experienced operator
• Training new operators takes a long time
• Film thickness and appearance vary between operators
• Defect judgments differ from person to person
• Improvements are not standardized
• Defect responses are temporary measures only
• Expertise is lost when an operator leaves

In this situation, expertise does not remain within the company.

For long-term growth, a coating factory needs a system for standardizing experienced operators’ knowledge, teaching it and passing it on to the next person.

Work standards, inspection criteria, photographic acceptance limit samples, film thickness control sheets, defect classification sheets and recurrence prevention records turn workplace expertise into a company asset.

Improvement activities need to be simple, focused and sustained

There are many improvement topics on the coating floor.

Film thickness variation. Overspray. Inadequate drying. Foreign matter contamination. Rework. Recoating. Equipment downtime. Color change losses. Operator burden. Inadequate quality records. Safety measures. Customer complaints.

Trying to improve everything at once exhausts the factory floor.

The important point is to narrow the focus of improvement activities.

What is the largest loss now? Which problem has the greatest effect on customer confidence? Which task places the greatest burden on operators? Which defect recurs most often? Where would improvement have a major effect on quality, productivity and safety?

Priorities need to be set through questions such as these.

Improvements do not continue if they become overly complicated. Keep them simple, focus on important topics, record the results and sustain the activity.

From a factory overwhelmed by work to a factory that can choose its work

If the factory floor is always occupied with immediate delivery deadlines and rework, there is no time for medium- and long-term improvement.

As a result, the same problems continue to dominate its workload.

A coating factory should aim for more than a larger volume of work. It should increase work suited to its strengths and move toward being able to choose work that supports profitability and the accumulation of expertise.

This also requires reviewing the current order portfolio.

• Is there too much work with low profitability?
• Are quality requirements and price conditions balanced?
• Are short delivery demands overloading the factory floor?
• Are small batches in many colors increasing setup time?
• Is the factory excessively tailored to one customer’s specifications?
• Does current work match the technical areas the company wants to develop?

The order portfolio directly affects the load on the coating floor.

Which work to accept, from which customers and under which conditions is a management decision inseparable from workplace improvement.

Manage quality, production and safety together

The balance between quality, production and safety is very important in a coating factory.

Rushing delivery too much can weaken quality checks. Pursuing production volume too aggressively overburdens operators. Postponing safety measures can lead to accidents or harm to health. Even excessively strict quality demands create confusion if judgment criteria are unclear.

Quality, production and safety cannot be managed by focusing on only one of them.

Coating processes face many safety and environmental issues, including organic solvents, dust, coating mist, fire risk, ventilation, working posture and the movement of heavy items.

Improvements in a coating factory therefore need to consider these three questions together.

1. Can the required quality be met consistently?
2. Can production volume and delivery requirements be met?
3. Can operators work safely without overextending themselves?

Balancing these three factors leads to sustained improvement.

Using external knowledge is also part of technical capability

Improvement confined to the coating floor can cause perspectives to become fixed.

After many years of using the same methods, practices considered normal on the factory floor may actually involve major waste or risks.

Using external knowledge is therefore important as well.

Examples of external partners include the following.

• Paint manufacturers
• Thinner manufacturers
• Coating equipment manufacturers
• Surface preparation suppliers
• Exhaust and environmental equipment manufacturers
• Quality control specialists
• Coating process improvement specialists

Using external knowledge is not an admission of weakness.

It is a positive activity to strengthen in-house expertise.

An outside perspective can reveal opportunities for improvement that were not visible from the factory floor alone.

CoatureVietnam aims to be that kind of external technical partner for its customers’ factories.

Organizational and management issues commonly encountered in Vietnamese factories

The following issues may be found in Vietnamese coating operations and component processing factories.

• Few improvement proposals are made beyond following customer instructions
• Application conditions depend on workplace experience
• There is heavy dependence on a particular customer or industry
• The company is readily drawn into price competition
• Quality requirements are high but price conditions do not match
• Many product types in small batches create a heavy setup burden
• Short delivery demands have become routine
• The company’s strengths are unclear even internally
• Experienced operators’ knowledge has not been standardized
• Improvement activities are temporary and do not continue
• There are few opportunities to obtain external technical information
• The factory floor is left to decide priorities between quality, production and safety

These are more than factory floor issues.

They are management issues concerning which customers the coating factory will serve and what value it will provide in the future.

Checks for strengthening in-house expertise and the improvement culture

The following questions help when reviewing a coating factory’s competitiveness.

Company strengths

• In which coating areas is the company stronger than competitors?
• Can you explain why customers choose the company?
• Are strengths such as demanding appearance quality, rust protection, many product types in small quantities or short delivery times clearly defined?
• Can these strengths be explained in sales materials or quality documentation?

Accumulation of expertise

• Has experienced operators’ knowledge been standardized?
• Are operating conditions and inspection criteria documented?
• Are defect response records being accumulated?
• Are improvement results applied to subsequent work?
• Are there materials that can be used to train new operators?

Approach to accepting orders

• Is dependence on a particular customer too high?
• Do you understand profitability for each customer?
• Is there longstanding work that places a heavy burden on the factory floor?
• Does the current order portfolio match the technical areas the company wants to develop?

Improvement activities

• Are improvement topics focused?
• Are improvement activities sustained?
• Are figures recorded before and after improvement?
• Do improvement activities depend only on a few individuals?
• Is there a system for factory floor members to identify problems and propose ideas?

External knowledge

• Do you regularly discuss technical issues with paint and equipment manufacturers?
• Have external specialists examined the process?
• Have you identified issues that are difficult to solve internally?
• Do you continuously collect information on new coating technologies and equipment improvements?

How CoatureVietnam can help

CoatureVietnam helps customer factories define their strengths and build an organization capable of sustained improvement, as well as addressing coating defects.

Coat Visioner

We make workplace conditions visible. We organize defect trends, film thickness, paint usage, recoating rates, equipment condition, working time and workplace burden to clarify strengths and issues.

Work standards and process control

We support the development of work standards, inspection criteria, training materials, defect response SOPs and improvement systems. We aim to retain experienced operators’ knowledge as company expertise.

Coat Systemizer

We support process design suited to the company’s strengths and the work it wants to obtain in the future, including spray booths, ovens, conveying, fixtures, operator movement and safety.

Paint Voyager

We propose paint and auxiliary materials suited to the required coating film and customer specifications. Material selection focuses on building the customer’s strengths, as well as supplying materials.

Paint Optimizer

When considering replacements for current or imported paint, we assess quality, application workability, paint usage, defect rates and workplace burden, as well as unit price.

Coating the Future with Science and Care.

Becoming a coating factory that customers choose requires science.

Make workplace conditions visible. Define the company’s strengths. Record film thickness, quality, defects, recoating and working time. Focus improvement topics. Standardize, train and sustain the activity. Use external knowledge to refine in-house expertise.

These accumulated efforts develop coating expertise that can be reproduced without relying on feel alone.

Improvement also requires care.

Do not force operators to rush beyond reasonable limits. Do not concentrate the workload on experienced operators. Respect workplace experience while retaining it as company expertise. Build a quality system that reassures customers. Aim to be chosen for technical value, rather than struggling on price alone.

CoatureVietnam organizes coating processes scientifically and supports improvements that help customer factories remain the preferred choice while making use of the capabilities of the people on the factory floor.

Summary

Coating cheaply is not enough for a factory to remain customers’ preferred choice.

As customer requirements increase, labor shortages grow and safety and environmental requirements become necessary, companies need to define their strengths and build them into technical expertise, standards, training and improvement systems.

Move from a passive response to work toward proposing solutions. Move from price competition toward being chosen for technical value. Move from dependence on experienced operators toward a system that retains expertise within the company. Move from temporary improvements toward a culture of sustained improvement.

This is the direction coating factories need to take in the future.

If quality defects, price competition, customer dependence, labor shortages, transfer of expertise or stalled improvement activities are issues in a Vietnamese factory, start by making workplace conditions and company strengths visible.

CoatureVietnam checks coating processes from the 4M perspective and supports improvements that strengthen customer factories’ in-house expertise and help them develop into coating factories that customers continue to choose.