American has been through a series of mergers and reorganizations over the years and is now owned by local management. The end result was a mixture of used powder coating equipment that was inefficient and cumbersome. As the business continued to grow, the finishing line at its Strafford, Mo., plant became a bottleneck. Color changeovers took three or more hours to complete with two employees. The color change process was so inefficient, that they could not afford to reclaim. According to Steve Smith, American Products' president, "I threw away over $125,000 in powder alone last year."
If American was to continue to grow, it needed to solve the paint-line bottleneck by upgrading to more technologically advanced equipment.