For more than 65 years, OW Lee has been a producer of premium, hand-crafted outdoor furniture and for more than a decade, has relied almost exclusively on PPG primer and powder coatings to provide long-lasting beauty and protection for its products.
Kevin CrossWhen the company recently decided to move its operations from California to Texas — which also entailed the construction of a new state-of-art powder coatings line — it expanded its partnership with PPG to include PPG’s coatings services business.
Based in Lima, Ohio, PPG’s coatings services business delivers single-source coatings solutions and related support services to more than 800 global customers from 34 plants in eight countries.
Strategic Partnership
As a family-owned business operating in California since 1947, the decision to relocate OW Lee’s operations was difficult for the management team, especially in the midst of a global health pandemic.
Needing a strategic partner to help guide them through the transition, the company asked a host of suppliers to bid on different aspects of the project, ultimately choosing PPG.
Kevin Cross, PPG director of equipment sales, coatings services business, said PPG earned the business by demonstrating its ability to meet the wide range of demands associated with the project.
“OW Lee is highly focused on quality and craftsmanship. They hand-sew their fabrics in-house and precision-forge and weld of all their metal frames and parts,” Cross explained. “PPG was uniquely qualified to provide the full color selection, consistency, formulation and matching services this level of quality demands, as well as the technical support they needed to get a new plant up and running.”
On its website, OW Lee touts the durability of its coatings. They include an epoxy primer that is hand-applied to specially selected carbon steel, galvanized steel and aluminum alloy substrates, which are then finished with PPG ENVIROCRON® HTE powder coatings. These coatings combine PPG’s proprietary high-transfer and edge-coverage technology with an advanced, low-VOC, non-TGIC formulation to deliver the ultimate in colorfastness, corrosion resistance and environmental sustainability.
PPG Envirocron HTE coatings also add a velvet-touch texture to OW Lee’s furniture line, which further enhances the luxurious look and feel for which the brand is known.
Putting Everything on the Line
While high-quality coatings are integral to OW Lee’s success, PPG’s most important contribution to the company’s future may ultimately come from its technical service and support team, which designed, specified, built and installed the $2.5 million coatings line.
“The ability to expand and upgrade OW Lee’s production capability will greatly improve their capacity to grow and has the potential to increase their profitability as well,” said Paul Bryant, PPG sales representative. “The technology on the line and the quality of their coatings products are on the cutting edge and put them well ahead of their competition.”
The technical services team — along with Willliam Ramos, business development manager — helped address other changes associated with the transition from California to Texas.
“The climate in Texas is different from the climate in California, so we had to make a number of accommodations for that on the new paint line, including the way we designed specific components such as the air seals,” Ramos said.
There was also the matter of customer training. Although 70 employees moved with OW Lee from California to Texas, the company made more than 200 hires at its new location. PPG’s coatings services business provided all the equipment training for the new and transferred staff, including instructions on how to troubleshoot potential problems as they arise on the production line.
Now that the project is complete and start-up is underway, both companies see even brighter futures ahead.
“OW Lee has a strong, young leadership core that will work well for them,” Cross said. “They were willing to tackle a major relocation during very trying business and social times and now they are well-positioned to achieve their goal of becoming a more global company.”
Meanwhile, OW Lee is eager to highlight its relationship with PPG.
“The owner was so pleased that he suggested tagging all of the company’s new furniture with a card that reads ‘Products coated by PPG’,” Cross added.
To learn more about PPG coatings services business and PPG’s fully integrated line of primer and powder coating solutions, visit www.ppgindustrialcoatings.com or call 1-888-774-2001. For additional information, visit https://www.ppgcoatingsservices.com
