Page 41 - Australasian Paint & Panel Mar-Apr 2019

PAINT&PANEL MARCH / APRIL 2019 WWW.PAINTANDPANEL.COM.AU
AXALTA FOCUSES ON CUSTOMERS
SAM STREET CAUGHT UP WITH AXALTA CEO ROBERT BRYANT FROM THE US, AUSTRALIAN MANAGING DIRECTOR STEVEN BRETT AND SOBERS SETHI, VICE PRESIDENT OF ASIA PACIFIC EX CHINA AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING ON THE COMPANY'S NEW HQ TO TALK ABOUT AXALTA'S PLANS.
HEN I POINTED OUT THE
huge step up from Axalta's previous offices the new HQ is, Bryant said: “It’s more than an office - having our distribution centre here for Australia and New Zealand as well as an outstanding customer training refinish centre and our customer service and support operations is really what it’s all about. It speaks volumes about what
we plan to do in this market.”
With all of the recent revolution in ul-
tra fast curing primer I wanted to know when they think they can crack this for every layer.
“That’s our plan,” said Bryant, “we invest nearly 4% of our sales – which
is over $200m in research and develop- ment globally. Much of that investment goes into the refinish business which, for Axalta, is about 40% of our sales globally. Refinish is the Crown Jewels, the heart- beat of Axalta so we spend a tremendous amount of time on innovation in refinish.”
Bryant says the developments in refin- ish are similar to those in the light vehi- cle business: “Your customers want inno- vation in terms of labour cost, energy usage and the actual amount of square footage that the paint shop takes up. Then all of that combined will mean im- proved productivity.
“Our business is a unique one in that you are trying to get your customers to use less and less of your product - which is kind of ironic. So fast curing products - that’s the focus at Axalta from a tech- nological development perspective and eventually we hope to see these prod- ucts spread across all layers. Then what
Axalta’s 175,000 square foot Global Innovation Center in Philadelphia is the largest of its kind in the world.
we’re always working on is there a way to collapse a couple of those layers into a single layer? Like when we managed to combine a primer and a base coat.
“We have teams working on that and there’s some interesting things that we’re looking at. For example, we are using dig- ital technology to improve colour match- ing even more, experimenting with a number of other ways to apply paint that are cheaper as well as more efficient and even more friendly to the environment be- yond just waterborne coatings in general.
“We’re experimenting with robotics and automation for application. Every-
thing we learn, we share those practices and innovations around the world.
“You don’t see major differences with the technologies and services from one region to another. If there are differenc- es, these are local market driven as op- posed to not having availability of those technologies in those markets.”
TALENT POOL
Attracting talent is a challenge in every industry, especially in the automotive sector – what is Axalta's strategy?
"Today it’s a global talent pool as there are so many opportunities for people to
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