Q: So you're used to getting up in the morning and checking the price of oil and natural gas.
Newlin: I am. I serve on the board of an energy utility company that develops oil and gas for a living, so I'm intrigued on several fronts. I wish we could do more about it, but I'm certainly paying attention to it.
Q: What's the status of PolyOne's resin distribution business?
Newlin: There's a lot of activity in the distribution arena. PolyOne distribution is a business we're very proud of. They do an excellent job and we've validated this with customer satisfaction surveys. It's a growing business that has an outstanding organization. It's one of the best-run businesses in our company, and we're very happy not only with the returns we've been seeing but also with the channel it provides for some of our own products.
[Distribution] has been reliable and steady and consistent, and I think that's the kind of business you always want to have in your portfolio. We have no plans at this time to modify that part of our portfolio. We like it a lot.
Q: How does PolyOne prioritize its North American market base vs. higher growth markets abroad? How do you protect that base while focusing on higher growth? Is that a challenge?
Newlin: It's not a challenge, it's a must, it's an absolute, really. We have this wonderful opportunity in the Far East and in Europe as well to grow at a high rate. At the same time, we're going to protect our base. About 76-78 percent of our sales are North American. In my previous positions, there's been more of an international mix. We want the weight of our business in Asia to be stronger. We're going to grow organically and through appropriate acquisitions and investments to make that happen.
I'm very pleased with our progress in the Far East. It's a nice business that's growing strong. We've put capacity on and filled it up pretty quickly. We're going to keep the faucet running to invest in opportunities to keep that business growing and try to be selective in more specialized niches. We have this wonderful knowledge of formulating and an experience bank that's unparalleled, and we have to use it wisely for customers and niches that appreciate that. It's always a balance.
I don't think we're finished in North America. We have opportunities in North America that are very attractive niches that we need to pursue and pursue aggressively. It's tougher [in North America] right now, but we have to find that delicate balance of growing our home base and going into areas with higher growth. There's just not enough weight in our portfolio for the rest of world to offset stagnant growth in North America, but we can't afford to let our business in North America be flat. We need to keep that going and improve North America at the same time.
Q: The focus seems to have shifted as North America has slowed. There's more going on with the penetration of plastic vs. other materials. That had been the focus before, but when growth was high the industry seemed to go away from it. Now it's coming back.
Newlin: That's music to my ears. I get the same sense. I'm new to this part of the business, but I know at one time it was ``Go, plastics!'' I sense we're on the verge of moving again toward more substitution. Our Gravi-Tech [polymer-metal composite] line is a good example. It's a great replacement for lead. I visited a compounding customer recently and was fascinated by this application. I didn't even realize it was plastic. It's really heavy and doesn't feel like plastic or look like plastic. These kinds of things are a great opportunity for PolyOne and for the plastics industry. A lot of dynamics are in play here, with prices for commodities like copper being as high as they are.
Q: Will that affect your R&D strategy?
Newlin: We're going to improve and upgrade our investment in R&D. PolyOne went through a period where we had to do a lot of things that we knew weren't the best long-term for the business. But we did it to get through a really rough period. Now, we've put ourselves in a very strong financial position that will allow us to go make some investments in areas with very promising growth, but we've got to be selective and we hope to be wise. R&D is one of the areas we want to make investments in.
We've got four fronts to investment. First is the commercial front, where we'll have more sellers on the street to call on additional prospects. Second is marketing. We want more marketing intelligence to better understand where markets are headed. We also need customer insights to map strategy on where to place emphasis.
The third investment area will be R&D and the fourth will be geographical expansion, in Asia predominantly, but also in parts of Europe.
Q: What are some things PolyOne can do about its raw material situation? We've heard of options ranging from sourcing more outside of North America to improving the quality of material while using less resin.
Newlin: Those are a couple of options, and there are several. We started a Sigma initiative in our vinyl business in July 2005, and it's made tremendous progress in removing waste on the manufacturing side. We're going to take those successes and leverage them across the company. We need to find ways to be smart about sourcing. You have to be smart and efficient in everything you do, including how to source, where you source from, scrap rates and the yields you're getting. You have to work on that all the time.
I was just at our plant in Pasadena [Texas] yesterday and was looking at the great work they've done and the impact that lean Sigma practices have had on that organization. They've not just reduced waste, but they've freed capacity and improved quality and on-time delivery to customers. The morale of these people was sky-high. They've internalized the concept and felt they made their company and their plant better. They're contributing more as a result and you could see that all over their faces. It was really uplifting.
Q: Have you had some pleasant surprises since taking the job?
Newlin: One of the things that's been a pleasant surprise to me has been our real knowledge of formulations. I understood when I did my due diligence [on PolyOne] that we were pretty good at it, but now I think we're outstanding. We're really terrific at this and I'm very pleased with what I've seen so far.
The other surprise has been our financial performance. It's been very strong. We had an outstanding first quarter. What it's doing is giving a lot of financial flexibility to our organization. It allows us to do some things to grow down the road, things that will be helpful and useful to our customers as well.
One other surprise has been safety. Companies talk about people and safety and environmental health and safe practices, but we really live it here at PolyOne. We take it seriously and it's woven into the fabric of the company. It's deeply imbedded as an asset to the organization. It wasn't a huge surprise, but it's been a pleasant experience to see how much we live it.