The Learning Curve

Posted on April 30, 2013 by induron

By David Hood, Induron CEO

Back in the 1990s, I taught a Junior Achievement class to eighth graders at Tarrant Middle School, here in the Birmingham area. This was not the “project” many people associate with Junior Achievement, but an actual 50-minute class once a week for an entire semester with curricula offered by Junior Achievement. The regular Social Studies teacher remained in the classroom to help, but it was truly a “teaching experience” for me.

Tarrant is a “working class,” mixed-race suburb of Birmingham, and my classes consisted of boys, girls, black, white, motivated, not-motivated kids, just as you would expect. Some were from single-parent homes and some were from homes with both mom and dad. But many of them hadn’t had the advantages that other kids their age have had.

I started teaching this class not knowing what to expect, but soon found that most of these kids were bright, inquisitive and really interested in economics and “home business” (how I described balancing a checkbook, creating and sticking to a budget, paying taxes and getting and keeping a job). Continue reading →

Take me to your Leader (in corrosion control)

Posted on April 23, 2013 by induron

By Kendall Smith, Induron Sales Rep

Did you ever notice that when the future is portrayed in movies (especially in dystopian sci-fi movies), nothing gets properly maintained? There are no corrosion consultants specifying abrasive blasting, containments, chloride removal, 3-coat coating systems, spray application, etc?

Perhaps in the future there will be limited budgets for all the elements of a successful coatings job that people have come to believe are necessary. However, those elements are not always needed for a great coatings project.

So what would I recommend to a post-Armageddon society to keep rust at bay while keeping inter-galactic costs low? Induron’s Induraguard 9200 and E-Bond! Continue reading →

You Can Always Improve

Posted on April 16, 2013 by induron

By Gary Bath, Induron Sales rep

I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of selling and feel that every job has some sales aspect – even if it’s just selling yourself to your boss. A teacher is selling education, a minister is selling religion, a politician is selling… well, you get my point.

I started out my sales career thinking all it took to be a good salesman was to treat your customer like you would like to be treated – the “Golden Rule” of sales. Then one day, it dawned on me that Customer Service was a big part of selling. So I started putting more emphasis on Customer Service.

Recently, I talked to a potential new customer about how great Induron’s customer service was. I felt I had made a strong presentation, but it didn’t convince the customer to switch.

Shortly after that I read an article from Alister & Paine entitled, “Do You Need a Customer Service “Spring Cleaning?” It came as a big surprise when I realized that I had at least three of the five bad customer service habits described in the article. It was a good reminder that even people who have been in this business a long time can always make improvements.

For example, probably my greatest fault during my years in sales has been that I worry too much. I worry about not getting orders shipped on time or my customer blaming our products for a failure that wasn’t our fault. This article made me realize that spending more time solving a customer’s problems – rather than worrying about things I can’t control – will make me more productive.

And that, of course, makes for happier customers.

Induron Family Q&A: Ricky Germany

Posted on April 9, 2013 by induron

At Induron, our Customer Service department is a key component in ensuring our customers get the products and information they need. Ricky Germany is the newest member of our Customer Service department, and we’re glad to have him on board!

Ricky has been with Induron since October, and in the few months he’s been here, has really become the “voice of Induron.” When customers call us, he’s usually the first person they talk to, whether they need to place an order, get a product recommendation or ask a question.

Learn a little more about Ricky:

If you were any animal, what would you be and why?

The animal that I would most like to be is a Fossa. It is highly intelligent and adaptive, lives in a tropical environment and has no natural predators.

What is your biggest professional mistake and success?

I cannot think of a professional mistake worth mentioning – either I have not had one or have selective memory suppression (I vote for the latter). As far as success, the following of clientele I achieved during my retail career – having people drive out of their way to come and deal with me exclusively – was very satisfying. Continue reading →

Conflicted.

Posted on April 2, 2013 by induron

By Davies Hood, Induron President

As a general rule, I’m opposed to PACs (Political Action Committees) because of the “secrecy” of their membership and undue influence in our nation’s political process.

However, I am also opposed to a lot of the everyday activities that I regularly participate in. What do I mean? I’m opposed to paying unfair sales taxes on groceries and medicine. I’m opposed to participating in the “free-rider” aspect of volunteer organizations. And I’m very much opposed to the game I grew up playing – football – being deteriorated by the NFL on a year-by-year or even week-by-week basis. But I digress.

But a recent article from PaintSquare has me cheering for (or at least, considering cheering for) the success of the new NACE PAC in Washington.

Look at the numbers: 3.1 percent of our nation’s GDP is spent on corrosion repair and prevention. And it is estimated that up to 30 percent of that cost could be eliminated with proper design and maintenance.

That’s about 1 percent of our GDP, or, in layman’s terms, $120 billion.

You read that right – $120,000,000,000. Continue reading →

Is the U.S. Really Heading Toward Energy Independence?

Posted on March 26, 2013 by induron

By John Anspach, Induron VP of Operations

With the recent uptick in fuel prices, it wouldn’t appear to be the case. However, a recent article in Chemical Processing indicates that significant strides are being made to really get there.

The likely biggest domestic energy development toward that end is the availability of gas from shale oil. New technology is allowing easier access to this enormous untapped energy resource. Michael Cowen of the International Energy Agency (EIA) states that, “within five years, the U.S. is likely to break the record output high reached more than two decades ago, to flirt with the position of top world producer.” Imagine that… having greater output than the Saudis! This can be possible with efficient shale oil conversion, combined with investments in new pipelines. If both methods are employed, it would significantly lower U.S. demand from oil imports, and move us closer to energy independence. Continue reading →

Corporate Values – Do they still have a place in today’s business environment?

Posted on March 19, 2013 by induron

By Tex Enoch, Induron Sales Rep

More than 40 years ago, I went to work for my father, who had just started Pennsbury Coatings Corporation, a small, family-owned coatings manufacturing company. Work was different then – no fax machines, no internet, no cell phones (some of us refer to them as “the good ol’ days”). We did business on land lines and through the Post Office. We also refined the art of the sales call. Back then, a contract was simply a hand shake.

Five years ago, I found myself unemployed and began looking for a company that represented what my father’s company stood for: a company that did what it promised, provided reliable and cutting-edge products, treated its customers like valued friends and offered its customers help if they needed it.

Induron Protective Coatings is a small, family-owned business that has allowed me to thrive in an environment that trusts its employees to work for the betterment of the company, as well as the industries that it serves. We try very hard to keep all the promises we make and never make a promise we can’t keep. It is a philosophy that serves us well. Continue reading →

Impacting Reliability

Posted on March 12, 2013 by induron

By Davies Hood, Induron President

By Davies Hood, Induron President

Our Core Values here at Induron are Integrity, Respect, RELIABILTY and Innovation. I was reminded of the least referenced one of these while reading this article in “Chemical Processing.”

As industrial paint manufacturers, we are considered part of the chemical industry, not only by ourselves, but also by the U.S. government. This article begins with the statement, “Reliability improvement remains imperative for chemical makers,” and mentions two of our biggest suppliers – Air Products and Chemicals and Dow Chemicals.

At Induron, we regularly report our Cycle Count (read more about Cycle Count here), which is an internal measure of doing things correctly time after time. More accurately put, it’s a measure of reliability. We consistently score in the 0.15 – 0.25 range (the lower the better), which by all accounts is an industry outlier.

This article talks about how Air Products and Dow have both taken an inward-looking metric and turned it inside out. This places their focus more on their customers than just their internal processes, and puts reliability at the forefront.

Two comments by Wilbur Mok, Air Products vice president of North American tonnage gases, that I particularly appreciated are, “We took the best operating practices and shared them globally. So now we operate each plant the same way.” This led to Air Products “freeing up site teams to spend more time on higher value tasks, such as preventative maintenance, improvement projects and troubleshooting.” Continue reading →

Picasso’s Paint

Posted on March 5, 2013 by induron

By Hayne Crum, Induron Chemist

I recently read an article about the paint Pablo Picasso used in his paintings. While you might think that a master like Picasso would use the finest paint available for canvas, that is not the case. Apparently, he used house paint. That’s right – the same paint that covered the exterior walls of homes was used on his masterpiece, “Red Armchair” and more.

Art historians speculate that Picasso is the first of the “masters” of the art world to have used this type of paint.

For centuries, artists mixed their own paint from fine oils and pigments. The paint that was made for commercial use (to decorate and protect houses and metals) simply was not good enough for fine artists’ portraits and paintings.

It was not until the beginning of the last century that commercial paint was processed well enough to produce a product that could live up to the high standards of an artist. However, that paint still used natural oils and ground pigments, and still had the problems that paint had for most of history – it cracked, faded and yellowed when exposed to air and natural light. These chemical processes were unavoidable with natural products.

However, over the years, technology has redefined how paints are produced. While some paints are still made the “old fashioned” way, newer paints are now much more durable and come in a huge array of pigments – paint colors that simply didn’t exist during Picasso’s lifetime. Continue reading →

Let’s Face it – Linseed Oil Needs Help!

Posted on February 26, 2013 by induron

By Kendall Smith, Induron Sales Rep

Let’s face it: when you’re trying to overcoat aged, failing coatings, badly weathered galvanized steel or even rusted carbon steel, linseed oil as a barrier coating needs all the fortification it can get.

Granted, modified linseed oil provides maximum wetting and penetration properties, as well as minimum curing stresses and disruption of the existing coating. But by itself, as a barrier coating, it would not hold out long against the elements (wind, rain, salt fog, sun, etc.).

So how do you get maximum barrier protection out of one high-build coat of modified linseed oil? Ask for it in the specification!

One purpose of a coatings specification is to be specific about what you want. High-build, properly pigmented linseed oil coatings have been providing excellent corrosion protection for 50 years when pigmented with functional pigments that provide an effective shield or barrier. Historically, once lead pigments were removed, those barrier properties have been best achieved with combinations of metallic zinc dust and other lamellar pigments, such as micaceous iron oxide and leafing aluminum.

When zinc is not used as galvanic protection (and at any concentration below 83 percent, it does NOT), it is best supplemented with platy-type pigments that orient themselves parallel with the substrate and overlap. These lamellar pigments align themselves much like mica. This lamellar formation creates a difficult pathway for the elements of corrosion to migrate through the system, and stops them from camping out on the vulnerable substrate, where corrosion cells will form and develop into pitting corrosion if moisture, salts and other corrosion inducers are left for any time at all. Continue reading →