PLUMBING
am also involved in both our short term and long term strategic planning — planning for the next markets, the next products and systems and the coming market trends.
What are your initiatives for the company? (What business philosophies of yours are instilled in the company?)
Delany: I believe that a company is
like a shark. A shark cannot breathe on its own; it needs to always be moving forward in order to have water move through its gills. A company is the same; if it is not moving forward, then it’s dying. I also feel strongly in the importance of being No. 1. People don’t have a lot of time and don’t want to take risk. Thus they naturally favor the No. 1 player in any given market. We are looking up at our competitors at the moment, but striving to be No. 1 will always be our primary goal. Our initiatives this year remain centered around building a solid foundation for delivering the highest quality products on time at a fair price and for introducing innovative new products. By the end of the year, we are looking to introduce a new product that will provide a major shakeup to our product lineup. It will have features not seen by the competitors, as well as other features that are new to Delany, making it far easier for contractors to choose our valves. In addition, this year we will begin offering 3D Revit files for a number of our products in order to make it easier for contractors/end users to work with Delany Products valves.
Can you explain the process and the importance of getting product to customers in a timely fashion?
Delany: For every manufacturer,
timely delivery is important. For the new Delany Products, it is crucial. From 2007 through most of 2009, the old Coyne & Delany let down its customers with delivery times that were, well, unacceptable, to say the least. Since our return, timely delivery has been our focus, and I am proud of what my brother Peter, our head of manufacturing, has achieved in this respect. We are not quite where we want to be but have come a long way and are moving in the right direction. As we told all of our agency representatives at our first-ever national sales meeting at this past year’s ASPE convention, as of Sept 30, 2010, the average delivery time across all items was 9.8 days.
How can contractors benefit from using your product?
Delany: Contractors can feel
confident in using any Delany Products item, due to our focus on simplicity and dependability. Our 130-plus years in existence and 80 years of focus on
the flush valve speak loudly and clearly to these points. The quality of our product is the highest in the industry, from the DZR alloy we use to the precision machining of every flush valve. A drop of water in their valve is our customer’s assurance that each and every valve has been water tested before it leaves our Charlottesville, Va., facility, a claim that no other competitor can make. In addition, our offering of 3D Revit files will make it easier for contractors and end users to quickly and accurately make adjustments to designs while seeing all the knock-on effects of their changes to products like ours in their design, saving them time, money and headaches.
Are Delany Products certified through a third-party certification process? Explain the process.
Delany: The new Delany Products
has built a relationship with Canada’s CSA International, a leading provider of product testing and certification services. Products are tested for compliance to international and United States standards, and qualified products are issued certification marks. The CSA mark is a sign of confidence for millions of people globally. Currently, two of Delany’s mainstay products have been given certification. As for the process, I will answer this from the perspective of a new product. All of our new products go through a rugged internal approval process. This starts in the lab, where we torture test a new product with at least 150,000 flushes and detailed documentation along the way. After making a production prototype, we field test in several locations for weeks at a time. Once this is done, and we are satisfied, we send that product to the CSA for their approval, which should be a formality at that point.
What are the top three obstacles your company faces(d)? How do (did) you overcome those challenges?
Delany: The three largest hurdles
that we have faced as a company were our outdated systems, poor corporate communication and broken trust. From a system standpoint, we have gone through a painful transition, beginning in 2009 and through most of 2010, to our new state-of-the-art PC-based CRM system. For 2011, we are already in the process of upgrading to the next level of the software as well as adding a new inventory feature to it. In terms of our corporate communication, we are streamlining our corporate message under the single name of Delany Products. Prior to 2009, the company was using several names at the same time: Coyne & Delany, Delany Flush Valves, Delany, and Delany Products. It was even maintaining two completely separate websites. Today it is just the one name, Delany Products, streamlined, simple
and delivering one message. Our greatest hurdle to overcome was
rebuilding the trust of our customers. Being unable to deliver complete valves for nearly two years took a toll on our valued customers’ belief in us. Thus the reason for our concentration on timely deliveries and my subsequent pride in the results that Peter has been able to obtain in getting our average time down to under 10 days. This has gone a long way toward rebuilding our customer’s trust. But, we know that we are nowhere near where we want or need to be. There are several items that still have unacceptable delivery times, but, one by one, we will tackle all of these issues. This brings us back full circle to our new systems, which will be a key tool towards our achieving additional improvements.
How does (did) the economy affect your business?
Delany: With the falloff in new
construction, our sector of the economy has been hit particularly hard. In some ways, though, this has been fortuitous for us as we have been able to use these slower times to restructure and reorganize, preparing ourselves for the time when demand returns. Our return to profitability during such a difficult time is also a testament to our loyal customers and to the changes that we have been able to make to date.
Describe the importance of the wholesaler/manufacturer relationship.
Delany:We deal entirely with
wholesalers. The relationship is an important one, as the wholesaler is a key piece of the puzzle for us, the manufacturers, to get our products through the supply chain to the end user. It is with the wholesaler that timely deliveries are of the utmost importance. If we cannot provide dependable support for the wholesaler then they cannot build confidence in their customer that they can get our product on time.
Any new products (updates), service offerings, incentives, etc.?
Delany: We are still strengthening our core, working on continuing to reduce production costs and delivery times. Our aim is to introduce several new products in the latter half of this year. One such product will be the Titan, which will be a major departure for the company in both its look and feel. It will have the features that Delany is known for and yet there will be changes that will excite the engineer. It will have quality and other elements that will simplify life for the wholesaler, and it will be easy for the contractor to work with and install. In addition to the Titan, the Impulse, the market’s first ever hands-free, battery- operated flush valve, will evolve into an improved and more user friendly version, to be called the Pulsar. l
39
phc july 2011
www.phcnews.com
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