Graco, the paint sprayer brand trusted and preferred by professionals, today announced that it has launched a line of handheld paint sprayers that will revolutionize painting for do-it-yourselfers to professionals including the handyman, remodeler, property maintenance and tradesman, and professional painting contractors

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Ryan Herco Flow Solutions (www.rhfs.com) has acquired the assets of Corrosion Products & Equipment, Inc. Piping Products Division (www.corrosion-products.com) headquartered in Rochester, New York

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Industrial Nanotech, Inc., an emerging global leader in nanoscience energy saving solutions, announced today that the expected orders from Mexico have now started coming in after delays caused by financing documentation required by the Mexican banking system

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Abrasive Blasting and Coating Services, a provider of corrosion control services, announced today that it will site its newest production facility here, creating 12 new jobs by 2013

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DuPont Performance Coatings (DPC) has partnered with The Body Shop, which specializes in “lean” collision repair. The agreement between the parties covers the sharing of The Body Shop’s Star-Link Collision Repair System, a Kaizen centered “lean” business model that was developed by John Sweigart and Brad Sullivan over the past 12 years. The model is currently practiced in all of The Body Shop’s Pittsburgh and New Jersey locations, as well as in several other independent repair shops in the United States and Canada. DPC is partnering with The Body Shop to offer a refined version of the model to DPC body shops.

The Body Shop operates a customer-focused group of collision repair centers with plans to continue rapid expansion over the coming years. Sweigart and Sullivan created the Star-Link Collision Repair Network, made up exclusively of repairers who are committed to genuine improvement through Kaizen. This group exists to promote to the customer a substantially better offering, and to work together through shared learning for the sake of a better collision repair industry, according to the company.
 
“We realized very quickly that DuPont Performance Coatings shared our vision,” said John Sweigart, CEO, The Body Shop. “We effectively help existing repairers create genuine improvement using a lean model and the answer is not just in the application of lean tools and courses, but through a hands-on, ‘learn by doing’ approach. The key to transform repairer operations is to focus on teaching, learning and problem solving.”

“DPC chose to partner with The Body Shop because of the organizations companywide commitment to process improvement and the ability to practice it internally and transfer it to others. We visited The Body Shop locations six times in 12 months and significant process improvement occurred between each visit,” said Steve Trapp, manager, DuPont Collision Services Development. “The Body Shop practices what they preach, they are continuously improving. Our customers will learn a lot from John Sweigart and the Star-link team.”

DPC will offer courses at NACE, SEMA and other events featuring the learning from exposure to The Body Shop. 

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MesoCoat Inc.'s PComP nanocomposite cermet coatings have been identified and selected as a breakthrough nanotechnology of potential benefit to the oil and gas exploration and production industry by EPNanoNet. MesoCoat Inc.'s CEO, Andrew Sherman will participate in the first EPNanoNet webinar on Sept 28th, to brief leading oil and gas industry members on the company's nanocomposite coating solutions for extending equipment life and operational envelopes in extreme environments. This is the first in a series of "Nanotechnology for E&P" webinars to be hosted by EPNanoNet, and MesoCoat was chosen as one potentially stand-out technology over a highly competitive pool of nanotechnology-based solutions companies and technologies to participate in this flagship event. EPNanoNet was launched in 2008 with the mission of accelerating the development and uptake of nanotechnology within the upstream oil and gas exploration and production industry.

MesoCoat's PComP nanocomposite cermet family of coatings incorporate solid lubricant and other ceramic nanoparticles into a hard, tough, extremely durable coating system that is used to protect metal parts from wear and corrosion in extreme environments, such as those encountered in the E&P industry. The PComP coatings are applied using thermal spray, and provide up to 10 times life extension over carbide and hard chrome coatings in sliding wear applications because of extremely low coefficients of friction combined with high hardness. The nanocomposite coatings also provide improvements in ductility, toughness and spallation resistance compared to ceramic coatings such as diamond like carbon, tungsten carbide, or alumina-ceramic, and are easier and faster to apply and grind than conventional, larger grain size coating materials.

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PPG Industries' protective and marine coatings (PMC) business has introduced PSX 700SG for use by United States Navy vessels and other federal marine coatings applications

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The pipe coating industry was affected by the global economic crisis, but the magnitude, timing and duration of the effects varied broadly from region to region and even among countries in the same region. In Asia, volumes continued to grow during the crisis (driven primarily by sustained activity in China), albeit considerably less than previously expected

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The American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) Committee on the Environment (COTE) has named its top ten green building projects for 2010 and at least five of them feature environmentally advanced glass or coatings made by PPG Industries.

The curtain wall for Manitoba Hydro Place in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, features Starphire ultra-clear glass in combination with Duranar XL and Duracron coatings on the mullions. Duranar XL coatings were used for exterior mullion finishes, and Duracron coatings were applied on all non-anodized interior mullions.

The Michael J. Homer Science and Student Life Center in Atherton, California, and Manassas Park Elementary School in Virginia both feature Solarban 70XL glass, the industry’s highest-performing solar control, low-emissivity (low-e) glass.

Twelve/West, a mixed-use building in Portland, Oregon, is the first urban building with wind turbines in the U.S. Duranar XL Bright Silver coating was used to cover the building’s exterior aluminum surfaces, and standard Duranar coatings were specified inside the building.

Lastly, the City of Watsonville Water Resources Center in California incorporates 2,215 square feet of Solarban 60 solar control, low-e glass.

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AkzoNobel has cemented its position as a global sustainability leader after being ranked in first place in the chemicals supersector on the Dow Jones Sustainability World Indexes (DJSI). The latest listing reveals that AkzoNobel achieved the highest total score in the sector and improved on last year's second place.

"Our first place ranking, coupled with our consistent performance over the last few years, is clear evidence of how successfully sustainability is being integrated into our global operations," said CEO Hans Wijers, who also acknowledged the contribution made by the company's employees around the world. We are fully aware that the future success of our customers and our own business activities is inextricably linked to the effectiveness of our sustainability efforts. We therefore refuse to let our standards slip and will continue to strive for improvement in all areas in order to maintain our leadership status."

Listed on the DJSI for the last six years, AkzoNobel has been relentless in reinforcing its commitment to sustainability, emphasized by the company's decision to link 50 percent of the long-term incentive for its senior executives to the performance on the influential ranking.

Regarded as one of the world's foremost sustainability indices, the DJSI World Index benchmarks the sustainability performance of leading companies based on environmental, social and economic performance, including forward-looking indicators.

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