Royal Mouldings
 “Our
employees have an attitude about getting things done. It’s
not really a formal philosophy on manufacturing, but it’s coming
to work, no high absenteeism, low turnover, and a willingness to
take responsibility for their part of the production process.”
Larry
L. Davis, Former President, CEO
Royal Mouldings Limited
Thirty years
ago when Larry Davis and three other top managers at Royal Mouldings
Limited started in the mouldings business at the Marion, Virginia,
plant, the market for their wood product was the mobile home industry.
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| Royal Mouldings facility
in Marion, Virginia |
Today, the
plant produces resin extrusions that replace wood and metal and
are used for interior – crown, base, chair rail - and exterior
mouldings – brick mould, window and door systems - and as components
used in the fabrication of doors, shutters, picture framing, spas
and other specialty markets. The company sells to the home improvement
and new home construction markets and is a part of the Georgia Gulf
Corporation.
Davis thinks
the 700 employees are successful partly because many of them have
a farming background and “they’re fairly good at making
analytical decisions about what’s not working with their machines
and making efforts to get them fixed and back in production. ”
In the last
five or six years various terms have come into vogue for describing
manufacturing excellence and quality control.
“We
don’t really have a name for it, and we don’t really work
in teams,” says Davis. “We’ve created cells of workers
who take responsibility for their part of production. We’ve
given it to them and they’ve taken it.”
Davis is
retired from Royal Mouldings and serves on the board of the Smyth
County Industrial Development Authority.
Royal Group is a Georgia
Gulf company, which announed in 2006 its intentions to acquire Royal
Mouldings. Georgia
Gulf Corporation is a leading, integrated North American manufacturer
of commodity chemicals, polymers and vinyl-based building and home
improvement products. The Company's chemical and polymer product
lines include chlorovinyls and aromatics.
Georgia Gulf's vinyl-based
building and home improvement products, marketed under Royal Group's
brands, include window profiles, siding, pipe and fittings, mouldings,
decking, fencing, railing, and window coverings. Georgia Gulf, headquartered
in Atlanta, Georgia, has nearly 50 manufacturing facilities in North
America to provide industry-leading service to customers.
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