Foam Shapes Challenges For The Future
Interviews with leading participants in the polystyrene foam shape market in Northern California, Florida and the Midwest reveal startling uniformity in their response to questions on the challenges facing the foam shape industry. From the largest to the smallest, manufacturers and suppliers are calling for the maintenance of quality standards.
The recession hit hard in Northern California, bringing with it all the bad things that recessions always bring: not enough work, erosion of prices, and corner cutting on the jobs available -- not only in the foam shape area -- but in most construction areas.
However, the past year was a pretty good year. Most businesses are seeing returns to pre-recession activity levels. Some are setting sales records in months like October, when business normally slows down somewhat.
These producers feel that continued good business rests on the confidence the architectural specifiers and installing contractors have that foam shape products will perform.
There is abundant evidence that properly installed shapes will last a long time and deliver on their promise of providing custom-designed, innovative decoration at a fraction of the cost of job-constructed wooden shapes, with more flexibility and less weight than poured concrete shapes. The oldest jobs are performing well, in general, and specifiers and users are more comfortable with coated foam shapes for outdoor use and are beginning to consider more indoor uses.
Persistent merchandising of foam shapes' quality -- by reputation and by education -- is looked on by producers as the surest way to keep sales on the same upward curve in 1995. Growth estimates vary from steady to 100 percent per year. On average, producers expect that a combination of a better economy and better acceptance of foam shapes will keep their businesses growing at 20 to 25 percent per year. Put another way, the average company expects to be more than twice as big by the turn of the century, and maybe much sooner than that.
Most provide the contractor with both plain and precoated foam shapes, and look upon precoated shapes as a good way to provide the needed quality image. Reasons cited are interesting and innovative:
- The repetitive nature of a production operation leads to greater product uniformity and quality.
- Trained operators and proper material selection yields the crisp, professional look the market prefers for decorative pieces.
- Basecoat formulas can be adjusted to reflect changes in drying and curing conditions, or the look required for the application.
- Matting can be controlled: proper type, more layers for more impact, combinations of matting for the heaviest duty applications.
- Precoating saves substantial time and money for the installer.
- Mistakes and abuses in quality applications are more easily avoided.
- Responsive service and on-time delivery ease the burden of planning.
- Precoating reduces on-the-job shape damage and waste that must be discarded and not recycled.
- Precoated shapes equal or exceed the Building Code Classifications of the underlying foam. Modified foams are classed under ICBO Research Reports 3401, 3414, 3530 and other UBC and UL classifications.
Decoration has always been the area of expertise of the artisan. Foam has almost limitless design capability, to the point that almost anything that can be seen can be made in foam. With stock catalogs that run into several hundred shapes, the artist is alive and well in the foam shape business.
At the same time, growing volume has enabled companies to take advantage of the economies of scale. Making a hundred two-by-fours always costs less per piece than making one. New equipment that gives producers more design and production capabilities is in operation or on the drawing board of several area shops. Greater investment tends to stabilize prices as producers train work forces, amortize equipment and assure quality to assure growth.
One of the positive influences on quality by many producers is the selection of Fibermatr polypropylene made by Custom Tapes, Inc. of Chicago. Polypropylene provides a combination of ease of forming around complex, decorative shapes; a variety of cut widths; a selection of either plain or stickyback products; and advantages associated only with polypropylene, such as freedom from alkali attack and freedom from skin itching when cut. As a unique product, it may be less likely to be confused with fiberglass matting, which comes in different grades. A continuing source of quality problems stems from the tendency of some contractors to use lightweight, indoor grade, fiberglass gypsum-board joint-sealing tape for foam shapes used outdoors. The product is not recommended for this use and performance results are inevitably disappointing.
Clearly the industry is poised for expansion in a number of directions. The traditional cornerstone of the architectural foam shape business has been outside building trim. Most producers interviewed offered outside trim in both stock and custom designs. This is being complemented by more inside shapes, such as columns and crown molding. One firm, Architectural Foam, feels that they will be specializing in interior items by 1996. Producers are also offering signs (Bay Area Foam, E.I. Industries), outdoor landscaping items (Natural Design's waterfalls), seasonal decorations, and craft and advertising display items (Carson's). All appear to have the prospects for enhanced profitability essential to sustained growth.
In addition, one-location firms are considering expansion -- either by second locations to serve a greater geographic area, or through various forms of joint ventures, such as shared technology.
Industry suppliers appear to be concentrating production and distribution facilities in developing areas to be available to assist in the growth, another promising sign.
Absent from consideration is the type of industry consolidation so prevalent in other industries, such as computers and defense, which have been key contributors to the California economy. It's pure speculation at this point, but one reason might be that design businesses appear to demand the type of creative, personal service that can get lost in larger organizations.
For now, we can be pleased with the accomplishments of the 80s and 90s to date; and we can look forward to further accomplishments in one of the most innovative and fascinating segments of the building industry.
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