Helping Color the World with Colortech

The summer days of cookouts, hot dogs, hamburgers and time spent outdoors in the sun are wrapping up for the season. When you reflect back on your summer days consider the French’s mustard you used–you have Colortech to thank for the vibrant yellow color of the bottle. If you were able to sit back and relax in a lawn chair, you have Colortech to thank for the color that doesn’t fade in the sun. And, you have Colortech to thank for the delightfully scented trash bags you used to clean up after your various summer hang out sessions.

Colortech’s colors and additive concentrates are in products that surround us each and every day, often used within plastics as part of an additives package. So how does Colortech ensure that garbage bags smell great, yogurt cups stay white, and lawn furniture maintains its color? An unwavering commitment to quality and continuous improvement.

Melissa Bailey is the Quality Assurance Manager for Colortech. When reflecting on the industry or application of their products she shared, “We have an extensive technical staff here that understands our customers and can tailor our products for their needs.” This means the applications of Colortech’s products are nearly endless. From antistatic agents to colored pigments, scents, and stabilizers, Colortech has numerous product lines, and every day is a new manufacturing adventure.“You can open [Colortech’s] door and say, ‘oh it’s trash bag scent day’,” Melissa laughed.

For Melissa and her team, there came a day when she realized their processes were misaligned: operations were moving slowly, steps were being missed, and inefficiencies were occuring. They called on us to help, and together we began developing the necessary processes. The first step for Colortech was document management.

When reflecting on the days before Qualtrax, Melissa shared that they, “used paper and saved procedures on the server.” That was problematic because it forced Melissa into a place of administrative minutia. “In trying to find time that I could spend on continuous improvement work instead of all the administrative work of ISO, we went with Qualtrax,” said Melissa.

Prior to our product, documents were not being updated regularly and various versions existed on individual desktops. In some cases, people created forms because they weren’t aware a form already existed to meet their exact need. Qualtrax enabled Colortech to maintain consistency, hold people accountable with notifications and reminders, and share documentation across the organization. Qualtrax created the conditions for alignment and visibility that Colortech needed.

One reason we love what we do is that long-term relationships with our customers allow for evolution together. Colortech began as an on-premise instance of our software but has since transitioned to hosted. For Melissa, this has brought tremendous value. When they were still on-premise Melissa would get a lot of calls from people away from their desks who had quality-related questions. Now, if they have access to the internet, they have access to the information they need. Going hosted has created increasingly efficient work days for Melissa and better equipped the people of Colortech.

Focusing on continuous improvement is what Melissa likes to do and it extends beyond her work on quality systems. One reason she loves her job is because she works with her team to identify untapped potential and strong contributors. Through successful implementation and adaptation of our product, Melissa is enabled to spend more time developing her team and quality systems at Colortech.

With such widespread impact–from consumables to furniture–Colortech’s products have to maintain a high level of quality. We love knowing that our product supports the people of Colortech and their products, each and every day. As a result, this impacts numerous consumers, like our very own team, as we enjoy the world around us through the function, sights, and smells of the products Colortech makes.

Category: Manufacturing

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