In the first of our speaker interview series, we spoke to Shruti Singhal, CEO at Chroma Color Corporation. 

Shruti is the Chief Executive Officer of Chroma Color Corporation, and member of the Board of Directors Chroma Color Corporation and Neenah (NYSE:NP), Inc. In today’s complex and changing world, he knew they needed to go even further to ensure the company could thrive going forward.

Several months ago, the senior leadership team at Chroma Color Corporation evaluated all current operation and manufacturing practices to establish a solid Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) roadmap.

Purpose & Plan:

1. Deliver a sustainable future through expertise in the science of color with collaboration with customers, team members and partners.
2. Bring new solutions to help customers solve problems that will make a stronger and more resilient global environment.
3. Establish and Maintain Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely Goals that positively impact the company & communities financially, socially, and environmentally

The Chroma Color Board Members have committed to support these programs. In addition, they will share the ESG results with the investor Arsenal Capital frequently.

Shruti is very optimistic that we will achieve our ESG goals for 2022 and stay committed to making the world better for our children and their children.

How do you see the industry developing and growing in the next three-to-five years?

Consolidation will continue, as the labor shortage and supply chain issues affect the sustainability of the small to midsize producers. The current environment also challenges start-ups unless they can introduce unique advantages to products and services.

In addition, our customers will require shorter lead times and on-time delivery to superseded price and this will drive innovation in automation, AI, capacity planning and alternative raw material solutions in the upcoming years. Ocean freight costs and timely delivery issues will continue to prompt opportunities for domestic growth as industry re-evaluates the international supply chain.

What do you consider to be the biggest challenges facing the industry at the moment?

Staffing remains a challenge particularly at the plant floor level which is where the bulk of our workforce is, apart from at the salaried levels. It also continues to be very important for our business leaders to position our industry as one which is exciting, dynamic and growing which will afford folks with not just a job, but a career path full of opportunity and prosperity for them and their families.

Companies will need to learn more about developing improved and long-lasting relationships with suppliers. There also must be positive movement toward multi-sourcing to help us mitigate risk.

Logistics and supply chain issues are still very challenging. There seems to be no end in sight on supply and container constraints. These issues have continued to negatively impact our ability to effectively meet our customers’ needs. 

Unfortunately, we also continue to see an extreme inflationary environment. This is something we don’t expect to get better until 2023.

Being able to evaluate actual lead times and get those communicated to customers in a timely manner, and assess performance against those lead times on a regular basis.  The mantra walking forward will be:  transparency is better than no communication at all. 

In your view, what has been the most exciting development in the industry in the last couple of years? And why?

Color match software has come a long way.  Using this software in conjunction with the improvements in metering/dosing equipment, large converters will be able to match their own colors and use single pigment dispersions online to color their parts.  However, on the downside, this in turn could commoditize the custom color industry.

To address this downside, the manufacturing of SPD’s could become a large part of our compounding and open the opportunity to implement our plans for a factory of the future.

The benefits of this type of process are minimal dust in the plant and much easier clean-ups.  Plus, small lot manufacturing would be 2.5 times faster. 

We are also excited about the success of our patented G-Series (G2 & G3) that enables our customers to achieve their sustainability goals.

G2/G3 Customer sustainability benefits include:

• Reduced Energy Consumption (lower process temps)
• Reduced Purge/Change-Over times
• Reduced Warehouse space requirements
• Improved Coloration of PCR Resins
• Improved Stabilization of PCR Resins