Features Archives

PVC breeds controversy in industrial fabrics industry

July 1, 2008 | Business, Features

Poor Waldo Semon. Today the inventor would no doubt fly his private jet to his private island, where he would entertain VIPs in just about any industry you could name. But in 1926, when the B.F. Goodrich Co. researcher devised polyvinyl chloride (PVC), his employer had a hard time marketing it. Toda…

Strategies for compliance with building codes

July 1, 2008 | Awnings & Canopies, Fabric Structures, Features, Graphics, Tents

It’s a story that’s becoming all too familiar: An awning company takes a job fabricating a simple entrance canopy. It’s the type of installation that this company has done hundreds of times before—but this time, that company is given a veritable laundry list of additional requirements. Provi…

Chism uses technology to improve business

July 1, 2008 | Business, Features, Management, Perspective

“You’re only as fast as your slowest person or procedure,” says Roy Chism, president of The Chism Co. Inc. in San Antonio, Texas, who doesn’t seem to have a “slow” speed in his process improvement strategies. Since 1988 when he purchased an automated plotter cutter with the serial number…

Composites allow creation of custom materials for unusual applications

June 1, 2008 | Features, Management, Marketing

It sounds like science fiction: portable airport hangars supported by columns of air, paper that conducts electricity and synthetic mother-of-pearl that can be bent without breaking. We have now entered The Matrix, but don’t expect to see Keanu Reeves in a black coat defying gravity and leading a …

Developing sustainable products and practices

June 1, 2008 | Business, Features, Projects, Upholstery

From magazine articles to seminars to trade show floors, the topic of sustainability has worked its way into business consciousness. And most manufacturers and distributors are starting to realize that implementing a few green elements here and there is not enough. Is it possible for a business to b…

Erickson values employees in creating a successful business

June 1, 2008 | Features, Management, Marine, Perspective

Marine shops sail with CAD systems

May 1, 2008 | Business, Features, Marine

Speed. Accuracy. Replication. This is what you hear when you talk to marine fabricators about CAD (Computer-Aided Design) systems. The time from concept to finished product is faster than ever before. Modification is minimal, if not completely eliminated. Fit is perfect the first time, repeating a p…

Rosania takes a risk to expand products and improve processes

May 1, 2008 | Advanced Textiles, Features, Management, Marketing, Perspective

Sometimes the greatest risk and greatest opportunity for a company is in daring to imagine a different way of doing business. By Sigrid Tornquist “It’s easy to talk about change. It’s much more difficult to implement it,” says Robert Rosania, IFM, CPP, and CEO of Ehmke Manufacturing Co. Inc.…

Tent graphics create their own audience

May 1, 2008 | Features, Graphics

Picture a tent, pure white and large enough in which to park a Boeing 747. What would you notice about it? Probably that it was very large, and very white. But what could you notice? “The tent by itself says something special is going on here,” says John Schlueter of Karl’s Event Rental. “Bu…

Examining UV-curable inkjet printing