PONTIAC, Mich. - Akzo Nobel underlines its commitment to the North American automotive plastic coatings market by breaking ground on an 11,000-sq-ft production expansion project that will incorporate state-of-the art equipment and processes for plastics coatings.

The expansion will include elements to improve overall operational efficiencies and throughput. An automotive coatings Automatic Dosing Unit (ADU) blending site will reduce batch-making times, while at the same time improving the consistency and quality of the products. A new waterborne production footprint will support the growing interior waterborne-coatings segment and position the production capabilities to support future exterior waterborne-topcoat activities.

The expansion will be further supported by the addition of a centralized quality control laboratory to better integrate the production and QC processes to increase throughput. See www.carrefinishes.com for more information.