A company switches providers to ensure its orders are always a priority

July 2016 - With Texas-sized orders, deadlines and expectations, San Antonio-based Quality Metals—looking to expand beyond state borders—found it needed to switch to a new coil coater. Because the service center’s growth was fueled by its on-time reputation, President Mauricio Albo could no longer accept dreaded phone calls telling him his coating job was delayed because a different customer’s order took priority over his.

“We wanted to be more than a number to our coating provider so when we found Dura Coat, [we] discovered a company willing to work overtime to reach our needs on time,” says Albo. “They always deliver as promised and I don’t worry that they might tell me to wait another week because they have other orders to complete before mine.” 

Quality Metals places orders with mills that use Dura Coat to paint material. Dura Coat makes it a point to be flexible so a paint line at any mill can coat the material—whatever is most convenient for the customer. “Our paint has been engineered to run on any paint line Quality Metals or any other customers of ours chooses,” says Kevin Ebert, vice president of sales and marketing at Dura Coat Products Inc., Riverside, California. “In the case of Quality Metals, we completed some trial examples for them and it was what they were looking for from a roll-forming standpoint.”

Quality Metals President Mauricio Albo is expanding  capacity with equipment able to handle coils up to 50 inches wide and weighing up to 11 tons at a new 50,000-square-foot San Antonio plant.

Roofing supplier

A distributor and service center, Quality Metals works with a host of customers from homeowners to architects, engineers to roofing suppliers and construction contractors. “Between our roofing and metal building divisions, we work with customers to develop ideas and figure out how to meet expectations based on how much space we have to work with. We can engineer it all for them or they can have us work with their blueprints,” Albo says.

Stocking a wide range of flat-rolled steel, aluminum coil and sheet products, including Galvalume and S&P material from 16- to 31-gauge, Quality Metals’ order activity has risen, driving its latest move into a new, larger facility. The 50,000-square-foot facility sits upon 7 acres in San Antonio. The facility’s high bays are serviced by four overhead cranes that have direct access inside the warehouse for loading and unloading. This allows Quality Metals to improve not only capacity but also productivity and efficiency on coil and steel processing, “rendering a high level of customer satisfaction,” claims Albo. 

The new facility will allow Quality Metals to expand its monthly capacity with equipment capable of handling coils up to 50 inches wide and weighing up to 22,000 pounds. The company holds substantial inventory so customers don’t have to be concerned about downtime because there’s a wait on material or because they don’t have space or the financial wherewithal to carry high inventory levels in their own shop. 

Quality Metals employees lay down roofing painted using Dura Coat. Engineers and architects work together closely to match form and function.

Recently, Quality Metals competed against a wide pool of bidders to acquire contracts with different Texas school districts to provide roofing material for several projects. “We have competed against some big players from around the U.S. and won the jobs,” Albo says. “After completing several of these projects, which include schools and administrative buildings, we’ve lined up additional jobs with the same contractors.”

Paint to order

Dura Coat says its growth can be attributed, in part, to technology and its attention to detail. “We’ve been able to grow our business through some tough economic times,” Ebert says. “Through it all, our technologies have enabled us to become a well-known supplier in the coil coating industry and consequently, it’s helped us gain market share and take on work we weren’t previously able to do. We expect more of the same going forward.”

Creating vibrant colors is rooted in a long tradition of science, with Dura Coat chemists working continuously to provide updated formulas that battle wear and tear from the elements while considering the sustainability of the environment. 

Dura Coat’s coatings are formulated for steel, aluminum and galvanized metals—as opposed to multiple lines of other products that include house paints or spray can paints for hobbyists, according to the company.

Dura Coat works with coaters on new developments, including test runs allowing chemists to adjust texture and multi-pattern systems. 

Dura Coat formulates its coatings to withstand wear and tear during installation as well as outdoor elements, allowing for color retention and stain resistance through the years.

The company’s Durapon 70 PVDF H/S Fluorocarbon Coatings, for example, is a proprietary acrylic resin blended with 70 percent Fluorocarbon resin with Hylar 5000. Cool pigmentation allows for long-term color retention for exterior applications and has better stain resistance, holding onto its bright hues for years. The paint can withstand rough handling: it’s formulated to resist installation scratching, marring and transit abrasion. Durapon 70’s cool roof pigments deflect UV rays.

Another product, Ceranamel XT-40S, is a premium exterior coil coating system used primarily for long-term exterior components such as roofing, sidewall and trim, that offers mar resistance, transit abrasion and scratch resistance. 

Dura Coat’s research and development is especially geared toward construction products that are differentiated, says Ebert. “We work with customers to help them establish a competitive advantage in their marketplace.”

He says Dura Coat is preparing for demands from coating customers that will emerge over the next five years.

Describing its own plant expansion, Ebert says, “We just recently opened up our new 36,000-square-foot building in Huntsville, Alabama, to better serve our Midwest, South and Southeast markets. We are in the midst of a healthy sales growth over all coil coating and extrusion sectors for both of our facilities and we must be positioned to continue to service our customers as they have been accustomed to.” MM