By DAVID BERTOLA
dbertola@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1621

It's common to hear about a U.S. company moving manufacturing operations to China, but at Saint-Gobain ADFORS, the opposite happened.

To manufacture drywall tape for the Japanese market, it moved machinery from Changzhou to its Albion facility during the first quarter of the year. Earlier this month, the local site began making products that previously were made in China.

"The China plant was not meeting the quality standards set by the Japanese market," said James Griffin, marketing director of Saint-Gobain ADFORS, Grand Island.

The facility serves as the company's North American headquarters and employs 50. What's odd, however, is that the product's performance was never in question.

"I was in Japan a year ago for a sales meeting and it's very (traditional); you wear slippers and drink tea," he said. "We didn't talk about price. We talked about appearance."

According to Griffin, if rolls of drywall tape - manufactured for hardware and big-box do-it-yourself stores and under the FibaTape brand name nationwide - aren't perfectly round in Japan, they are rejected. The rolls by Saint-Gobain ADFORS are similar in size to large rolls of duct tape.

Japanese customers are particular about how they are packaged, too, he said, adding, "They need to be perfectly circular."

He showed some examples in which the round labels appeared to be centered, but they would never do for the Japanese, who require them to be dead center.

Then there are shrink-wrapped ends along the sides to consider. These need to lay as flat as possible, without crinkling. This is problematic, as the light, transparent material tends to lift slightly away from the product when sealed.

Also frowned upon are end yarns that sometimes pull away from the roll, creating a loop. They're referred to as "ringers."

"This is a quality standard, and these are rejected, too," Griffin said. "In the U.S., they would be ripped off and you would move on."

Quality to be a priority at Albion plant

The Saint-Gobain ADFORS master distributor brought these issues to the company's attention, knowing the Japanese customers would reject such products.

"They know what would be acceptable and what would not," Griffin said.

It was then determined to relocate the Chinese operation to the Albion facility, where 194 work. The two-story machine that had been used in China is now there. It puts Fiberglas with a rubber coating on both sides, then an adhesive on the back.

"We didn't have that capability in the U.S.," Griffin said, adding that two machines are used in Albion, one for each process.

For the last year or so, some drywall tape had been made there for the Japanese market. Now all of it will be made locally.

"This new process will improve quality," Griffin said, citing the company's experience in making the products as one reason why it will be able to meet customer needs. "We've been making it for 30 years now in North America. That's our biggest attribute."

Re-paving product also made in Albion

The addition of the machine also will be used to free capacity for the company's GlasGrid pavement-reinforcement system. The Albion facility manufactures this, the drywall tape, plus sail cloth reinforcements using high-end yarns and other products.

GlasGrid was designed to extend the life of re-paved roads. The product, with a heavy-duty Fiberglas base, is sold worldwide and comes in a lightweight black grid 4 feet wide and 150 meters long. It gets rolled off a pickup truck or tractor onto the road during the paving process. Open spaces created by a seemingly endless network of squares are big enough to poke the tip of an index finger through them.

The company's new product, GlasGrid 8501TF, was five years in the making and is melted between layers of the road during re-paving. It replaces tack coat, a decades-old product that gets sprayed onto the road during paving and is usually accompanied by a noxious odor.

Both products are designed to disperse energy from cracks that form beneath the surface.

Overseeing the operation in Albion is plant manager David Fink, who comes from sister company CertainTeed Fence, Rail & Deck on Ship Canal Parkway in Buffalo. He will begin overseeing the Albion operation Aug. 1.

Other than Fink, it isn't known how many additional jobs will be needed at Albion, although Griffin anticipates some will be created to manage the increased output.

Without disclosing sales figures or exact product quantities, he said he anticipates the drywall tape rolls will be manually inspected every month. This will be done either on the plant floor, as a project that gets outsourced or a combination of both.

According to Griffin, the perspective that Japanese drywall tape customers offer is one company officials haven't seen before, but also one that may be beneficial to others. To turn a negative into a positive, he is hopeful the solutions the company develops will ultimately provide better products to all Saint-Gobain ADFORS customers.

"This is definitely a challenge, but one we are working on," Griffin said of meeting the quality standards for Japanese customers. "There are issues we are working on today as they are still not 100 percent satisfied."