Life moves quickly. Trends and customer requirements in industrial processes are changing in ever-shorter cycles. Particularly, contract coaters must be very flexible when responding to incoming customer orders. Many contract coaters therefore rely on keeping an extensive stock of different powder coatings. Of course, all the common systems, colors, textures and gloss values need to be considered. The disadvantage is that not every coater has access to large storage facilities and that this stock initially counts as fixed capital.
Alternatively, most powder coatings manufacturers have started to offer short delivery times. However, this method does not always guarantee that the required systems are available on demand. They may even still have to be manufactured. And this is getting even more difficult due to the fact that supply chains are currently unreliable and there are raw material shortages.