Coating Supplier
Coatings protect surfaces and improve the functionality of countless objects. Choose a coating supplier who is reliable and willing to help you get the job done.
NCS | SSI is a distributor of high performance industrial paints and powder coating raw materials. It serves manufacturers, automotive and body shops and restoration centers in the continuous United States.
Know Your Requirements
A thorough supplier evaluation is important for any company, but it’s especially critical when the product or service you are purchasing will play a key role in your business. If your company relies on a CVD coating to manufacture medical devices, for example, a supplier failure can have devastating consequences.
The energy you invest in evaluating and selecting a coating supplier should be proportional to the importance of the product or service to your business. For instance, you probably don’t need to conduct an extensive vendor evaluation when purchasing staples, but if you are looking for a supplier to provide specialized chemical Vapor Deposition (VD) coating services for your critical medical device production processes, you should make sure you select the right partner.
It is also wise to leverage the power of single-source supplier partnerships in the industrial coatings industry whenever possible. This will allow for greater technical value and project certainty to be derived from the planning phase of a job through its execution.
Consider the potential coater’s financial reserves to ensure they will be around in the future to support your needs. It would be a disaster to find out that your preferred supplier went bankrupt before you had a chance to evaluate them for the long haul.
Ensure the coater has the necessary accreditations, insurance and industry certifications to produce and apply your desired coating. For instance, if you are producing medical devices, be sure to select a coating supplier that is ISO certified and offers FDA compliant coatings to ensure your finished products meet the required quality standards.
Also, ask the potential coater for lead times on equipment delivery. Delays are frustrating and can impact your schedule. Make sure you get a lead time commitment as part of your purchase contract.
If you are a metal roofing manufacturer, consider choosing a supplier that offers both powder and liquid coatings. This will give you maximum flexibility for the application of protective and decorative coatings on standing seam metal roof systems. This will help to extend the life of your roof and keep maintenance costs low.
Assess Their Capabilities
The most important thing to consider when choosing a coating supplier is the company’s capabilities. Do they have a dedicated R&D, Engineering, IT and Quality staff to support your business needs? Does the coater have the industry certifications and accreditation you need for your application? Do they have a dedicated, highly efficient coating process that will provide you with the best possible performance and cost-effectiveness?
There are many different ways to assess a company’s capabilities, but a good place to start is by considering what your business requirements are. For example, a coating supplier might have the capability to produce a high-quality powder coating for metal parts that need to be highly durable and corrosion resistant. However, the company might not have the ability to provide a coating that will be durable enough for medical devices.
Another way to evaluate a coating supplier’s capabilities is to ask them to complete a Capability Assessment. This is a type of assessment that helps companies identify which capabilities they need to improve and prioritize those improvements. In order to perform a Capability Assessment, a company would typically gather a group of experts who can evaluate the current state of a capability by rating it on a scale from 1-5. Once the experts have rated each statement, the ratings are averaged to create a score for that particular dimension.
Once the company has assessed its capabilities, it can then use the results to make strategic decisions and determine how much to invest in improving those capabilities. The resulting data can also be displayed in Bizzdesign Horizzon in a variety of ways, including as a heat map, which can help businesses quickly identify below-par capabilities that need to be improved.
Coating suppliers offer a wide variety of products and services for industrial, automotive, aerospace, metalworking and electrical applications. These include coatings, adhesives, sealers, encapsulants/potting and saturants with thermal, electrical, chemical, mechanical and curing properties. They can be supplied in a variety of formats from small cartridges to 55-gallon drums. Some also manufacture specialty paints for applications such as lubricant coatings.
Foster Collaboration
A solid relationship with your coating supplier is vital for the success of a project. Involve your supplier from the initial stages of a product to ensure they have a full understanding of the specifications and requirements of the application. This will help to prevent miscommunication and delays in the project’s completion. A dependable and consistent coating supplier will be willing to work with you to find solutions to challenges, helping you meet your goals and keep production running smoothly.
Global raw material shortages, trade wars causing a shift in economical supply base, new legislative regulations, heightened environmental restrictions, and talent shortages are all trends that are impacting the paint and coating industry in 2018. These issues have led to more customer requests for true partners that can adapt to changing environments, minimize their impact, and deliver innovative products that contribute to customer success stories.
Coatings suppliers can be true partners by providing technical support to their customers through line audits, application training for painters, and environment, health, and safety updates and training. They can also provide their customers with cost savings through raw material inventory reduction, formulation simplification and multifunctional additives, and manufacturing productivity improvements.
Additionally, a good partner will be flexible to meet their customers’ needs and offer solutions for unique applications and substrates that are not covered by their standard offerings. They will also be able to adapt to customer demands for reduced VOC content, and will be able to provide a wide range of products to fit a variety of budgets and application needs.
Finally, a great coatings supplier will be able to foster collaboration with their clients, encouraging them to think of their products as more than just paint. They will understand the importance of a holistic approach to sustainability and will employ documentation, testing and on-site evaluations to align their coating with client color, manufacturing, and environmental specifications. This will help to create a more sustainable value chain that benefits the environment, and the companies and consumers who rely on it.
Monitor Their Performance
Lastly, you want to make sure that your potential coating supplier has good financials. If something happens and they go out of business, that can be catastrophic to your project. Make sure they have enough reserves to protect you from that and any other unforeseen circumstances that may occur.
In addition to their ability to perform temperature profiling, make sure that they can do what you need them to do to support the coating process. For example, if you are using a CVD process to coat your part, they will need to be able to provide proof that the oven is operating correctly to a specified temperature and chemistry. This can be accomplished through testing of the cured coating.
If you are unsure how to evaluate your potential coating supplier look for references and reviews. Also check for relevant industry certifications and accreditations (this is important in many industries). Lastly, make sure that they have adequate R&D, Engineering, IT and Quality staff to support your needs. This is critical for ensuring that the product they supply meets your evaluation criteria and to address any issues that arise during production. They should have a solid record of on time delivery and a well maintained Quality system. The last thing you want is to have to wait for the coating to be reprocessed due to a quality problem.