Wellmade doubles domestic capacity

Cartersville, Ga.—More than two years after launching its meticulously designed, state-of-the-art rigid core manufacturing facility here, Wellmade has officially doubled its production capacity. A leading OEM supplier that supports many of the industry’s most recognized brands, Wellmade has added eight more extrusion lines, bringing its total annual capacity to 200 million square feet. What’s more, the phase 2 expansion allows Wellmade to take on new customers for the first time essentially since its launch.

Phase 1, which was completed in February 2022, started with eight extrusion lines. Today Wellmade produces roughly 50% of all the SPC made in the United States, according to Dick Quinlan, senior vice president of sales and marketing. This achievement is especially critical during a time when the industry at large is facing so many challenges with imported SPC and other rigid core flooring products (see sidebar on page 9). “There are issues that continue to create strains on the global market—global tensions between China and Taiwan; Suez Canal and Panama Canal issues; the Uyghur stoppages, etc.,” he said. “All this has reaffirmed our decision to continue to make investments in the United States as opposed to somewhere else.”

This expansion, according to Quinlan, makes the Cartersville site the largest manufacturing facility of SPC/HDPC products in the United States. “We believe if a company doesn’t have U.S. supply today, it needs to get some,” he said. “We recommend putting some U.S. supply into their portfolio simply to hedge against potential issues.” These include the aforementioned geopolitical issues as well as supply chain challenges.

The expectation, according to Quinlan, is that it won’t be long before Wellmade exhausts its newly added capacity. “When we opened the plant, by the time we started production we had completely sold out of all our capacity,” he explained. Hence the huge investment to double that capacity. “That capacity could be consumed very quickly, so we’re looking for companies that want to partner and build a long-term relationship. We’re not trying to sell anyone. We want partners who want a long-term supply chain that we can build on.”

Why Wellmade? There are many companies currently making rigid core products in the U.S. However, according to Quinlan, not all suppliers are created equally. In fact, there is a great deal that separates Wellmade from the pack, not the least of which is Wellmade’s claim that is actually the originator of the category, which it refers to as HDPC.

“Because we are the inventors of the category, we have people with industry knowledge that is equal to or superior to anyone in the industry,” Quinlan stated. “We brought all that knowledge to the United States. In fact, George Chen, the leader of that technology development and company founder, is based here in Cartersville.” Everyone that followed Wellmade is buying the machines that Chen helped design, Quinlan added.

Signed, sealed, trademarked

Wellmade trademarked the HDPC name, which is why everyone else refers to the product as SPC, according to Allen Chen, president. “What we did a little bit differently when we filed this patent was instead of plastic we called it polymer,” he explained. So HDPC is not only a patent technology, it’s also a trademark.

Some have disputed that Wellmade was the originator of the category. “We were the first in the world to file this HDPC patent,” Chen said. “We received the Chinese patent back in 2015, and we brought up to the USPTO (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) on Jan. 18, 2016. Our first container arrived in the United States in 2015. There are records of this.”

But it’s more than just knowledge. Wellmade is focused on making high-quality products. And the recipe to make HDPC/SPC lies in a superior coreboard. “What’s happened in the last two years is freight costs went way up,” Quinlan said. “What we’ve seen as a result is some manufacturers who were struggling in Asia significantly reducing prices. As they lowered price they lowered the quality of their board. They put in more fillers; they made the board more brittle. At the lower price points there has been more cracking and more failures as the quality of the board was reduced.”

Wellmade has spent millions of dollars determining the right chemistry to make a high-quality board, a recipe that is a closely guarded secret. “It’s very dense, it’s closed cell, it’s completely waterproof but also has some flexibility so when you’re installing it that flexibility not only helps with the installation but also reduces the risk of breakage in the box,” Quinlan explained. “It is not uncommon for [inferior] boards to break before they get to the installation.”

It is no secret that some manufacturers have struggled to get up and running with their domestic factories. Many faced the challenge of installing the equipment during the pandemic, so the engineering support that was expected to come from places like China wasn’t available. “Thus, these plants had to be built by people who in some cases didn’t even understand how to build the machines or make board,” Quinlan said. “Our advantage was George Chen moved here and brought expertise in how to put the machines together, expertise in how to create the chemical mix to make a product as consistently as we did when we were producing in Asia.”

As COVID-19 restrictions began to loosen, Wellmade brought more than 20 experienced team members from China to work on the startup, and with that all the knowledge of how to run a facility while other companies had people who had never run the machines or never made board.

Because Wellmade is considered the pioneer of the category, it simply cannot afford to make a sub-par product. “It’ll give away the advantage of having a high-quality branded coreboard,” Quinlan said. “If you make it cheaper and it starts failing, you take away the quality that our HDPC brand represents.”

Fortifying the supply chain

As Wellmade prepares for its next phase and the ability to take on new customers, it is even stronger than it was when the facility launched in 2022 because it has learned so much, particularly as it relates to forecasting. When you manufacture in China, films, wear layers, pads, raw materials are deliverable to the plants within two or four weeks, according to Chen. “Here in the U.S. we had to build a supply chain that required a 90- to 120-day lead time. Nobody was making HDPC or SPC in the United States, so developing that supply chain was brand new.”

More importantly, Wellmade is an Oregon-based corporation since 2001, “meaning we are a true American company,” Chen said. “We have hired more than 180 people combined both in Oregon and Georgia. We will continue to offer a hiring opportunity while we continue to grow and service our valued clients.”

Indeed, Wellmade has learned how to work with its customers. “We must project demand 120 days out so we can order the raw materials to be ready to make the products to meet their schedules. As an example, it’s the first week in August and we’re planning raw material production for October and November now.”

Also, the product coming off the line today is more consistent than it was two years ago. “That’s very important for manufactured product,” Chen said. “You need consistency. That’s our standard.”

Manufacturing flexibility

The expansion allows Wellmade to offer a broader range of product. Today Wellmade can make virtually any size or thickness that the customer wants, according to Quinlan. “Customers are continuing to push for wider and longer products, so our new machines will be able to make these bigger products. A huge percentage of what we make here is 9 ½ inches wide; the new equipment allows us to very easily make 72-inch-long product.”

Wellmade can now make product ranging in thickness from 4mm with a 1mm attached pad to an 8 + 1. “We have the ability to make any reasonable thickness the customer wants,” Quinlan said. “We can make generally any size. For example, tile is 12 inches wide, but we have the capability to make planks as large as 24 x 48. There’s a lot of flexibility in the machines, which is another difference compared to others.”

The new machines also have the ability to produce embossed-in-register product to create greater realism. One thing that sits on Wellmade’s radar is digital printing, but Chen said the company views that technology differently than others. “In our minds, digital is more geared toward customization,” he said. “For example, if someone’s daughter likes Disney and you want to put Mickey Mouse in her floor, that’s where digital comes into play.”

Quinlan noted that, so far, the advantage of digital printing is raw material reductions. “You don’t need the film, maybe you don’t even need the wear layer. But the challenge is the raw materials—the chemicals, the physical pigments—to make digital is proving to be very expensive and in some cases far above what we can make the product for today.”

The ultimate goal is to attract new customers, whether that’s manufacturers, distributors or large retailers that might want a domestically made product. Wellmade is not looking to establish its own brand, so as not to compete against its customers. “Wellmade is an OEM supplier. We recognize that customers want a branded product,” Chen explained. “So we work with our partners to provide separate brands to meet each customer’s’ unique marketing needs.”

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