As part of its ongoing effort to expand and enhance the role of design across its key business processes, American Standard Brands recently welcomed three additions to the company’s design team. Emilie Williams, Greg Reinecker and Gabriela Ravassa are working at the Company’s design studio at headquarters in Piscataway, NJ, reporting to new Vice President Read more
General News
As part of its ongoing effort to expand and enhance the role of design across its key business processes, American Standard Brands recently welcomed three additions to the company’s design team. Emilie Williams, Greg Reinecker and Gabriela Ravassa are working at the Company’s design studio at headquarters in Piscataway, NJ, reporting to new Vice President – Design Jean-Jacques L’Hénaff.
Emilie Williams, as associate design director for faucets, leads all design projects for that category. Williams formerly served as senior designer at Ignite USA, where she designed and developed housewares products for the Contigo and AVEX brands. Previously, Williams spent eight years as lead industrial designer at Delta Faucet and senior designer at the Masco Corporation, where she worked on the Brizo brand. She holds a Bachelor of Industrial Design from North Carolina State University.
Greg Reinecker, as lead designer, oversees industrial design projects from concept through implementation across various product categories. Reinecker has worked with two leading design consultancies — Teams Design in Chicago and Axis Design in Austin, Texas — and brings over 10 years of experience in multiple industries, including power tools and housewares.
Gabriela Ravassa, working as industrial designer, pursues projects across all categories, but is currently focused on trade faucet lines for American Standard and DXV, the company’s new flagship luxury bathroom and kitchen brand. A graduate of Parson School of Design, Ravassa worked with eyewear brand Don Vetro, as well as OMHU, a Scandinavian brand specialized in elegant mobility aid products for the elderly.
The new trio brings the current U.S. design team to six members ― including L’Hénaff; Alyson Lyons, lead designer; and Christophe Bucher, chief industrial designer – chinaware products ― plus three associates located in manufacturing facilities overseas. L’Henaff joined the Company in October 2013 in the position of vice president – design. “Jean-Jacques is leading us in a forward-thinking direction, creating world-class product design for products that perform fabulously while looking beautiful and meeting the high-style demands of today’s customer,” said American Standard President and CEO Jay Gould.
Prior to joining the company, L’Hénaff has been a design executive for Kohler Asia, Audiovox, and Terk Technologies, and held various design management positions for consulting firms such as Henry Dreyfuss Associates and The Arnell Group in New York City. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Product and Transportation Design from Ecole Superieure de Design Industriel in Paris.
In reinvigorating the design function at American Standard, L’Hénaff and his team have taken a more “user-centric approach to the design process,” he said. “It is all about the user’s experience. We focus not only on the product’s look, feel and function, but also on the overall experience we want the user to have when interacting with them.”
The keys to this approach are two-fold. The first is a commitment to validating new design concepts by submitting them to first-hand consumer testing early in the development process. “The idea is to test our prototypes early, learn early and repeat that cycle again and again until we obtain the right experience,” he said.
The second key is closer ongoing communications among team members, including their colleagues in China. “One designer may focus on faucets, another on bathing and another on chinaware, but we cannot work in silos without regard for each other’s challenges and perspectives,” said L’Hénaff. “Each American Standard or DXV product is a brand ambassador, so all of us are involved in building the brand, and each is on board with what’s happening with our product line as a whole. We have been given this unique opportunity to build on fifteen decades of design tradition and re-interpret it for 2015 and beyond. We are intent on making the most of it.”
(Uponor) announced it has purchased a minority position in Upstream Technologies, a New Brighton, Minn.-based company. Upstream Technologies is involved in the stormwater management market and has introduced innovative products that significantly improve process and efficiency in these areas. The opportunity came to Uponor through its recently launched subsidiary Uponor Innovations LLC. “We are excited Read more
(Uponor) announced it has purchased a minority position in Upstream Technologies, a New Brighton, Minn.-based company.
Upstream Technologies is involved in the stormwater management market and has introduced innovative products that significantly improve process and efficiency in these areas. The opportunity came to Uponor through its recently launched subsidiary Uponor Innovations LLC.
“We are excited about this opportunity and although it is outside Uponor’s core strategic focus, Upstream Technologies’ products align with our sustainability goals and our vision of enriching people’s way of life,” says Bill Gray, president, Uponor North America. “Uponor believes companies play a special role in leading sustainability initiatives by producing products and services that make it convenient, affordable and effective to do the right things for the environment.”
One of Upstream Technologies’ products to make waterways clean in an affordable way is the SAFL Baffle. Developed out of the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering’s St. Anthony Falls Laboratory (SAFL), this product keeps sediment pollution out of lakes, rivers and oceans.
“Urban runoff hits the road, goes into the storm sewers and ends up in receiving water bodies such as lakes and rivers,” says John Gulliver, a professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geo-Engineering and co-inventor of the SAFL Baffle. “Cities are required to treat urban runoff and are trying to figure out how to deal with this in times of limited funding.”
Jay Schrankler, director of the University of Minnesota Office for Technology Commercialization, says, “Uponor’s commitment to University of Minnesota start-up licensee Upstream Technologies further cements the SAFL Baffle’s place as an affordable tool to keep our waterways clean.”
A.J. Schwidder, CEO of Upstream Technologies, is very excited with Uponor’s investment in the company. “Uponor has a reputation of creating innovative and green products to save energy and ensure safe water — with a focus on reducing our carbon and water footprint locally and globally,” he says. “Their investment is an endorsement of our products, our company and our vision of improving the quality of our water in an affordable way.
The Upstream Technologies story has been an outstanding example of the good that can come from government, academic and corporate collaboration. “Uponor’s commitment to Upstream, along with the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the University of Minnesota’s St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, makes them a member of a group dedicated to improving our waterways,” Schrankler says. “With Upstream and Uponor behind the SAFL Baffle technology, we believe adoption will be accelerated for the good of our environment.”
(Uponor) was recently honored with the prestigious Partners of Choice Award from Houston-based Weekley Homes, the nation’s largest privately held home builder and the first builder in the United States to be awarded the Triple Crown of American Home Building. Uponor is one of only 13 companies out of 200 David Weekley Homes’ U.S. suppliers to Read more
(Uponor) was recently honored with the prestigious Partners of Choice Award from Houston-based Weekley Homes, the nation’s largest privately held home builder and the first builder in the United States to be awarded the Triple Crown of American Home Building.
Uponor is one of only 13 companies out of 200 David Weekley Homes’ U.S. suppliers to receive the highly coveted “A,A” ranking for world-class excellence in both quality and service.
The award is based on the home builder’s elaborate supplier evaluation platform, which features their comprehensive National Trading Partner Survey. The survey is administered to approximately 800 team members from all levels of the David Weekley Homes organization, in which raters are asked to evaluate their trading partners on the basis of quality and service. Those companies that consistently rate in the top 20 percent of the rankings each quarter receive the “A,A” ranking for the year signifying an “A” in both quality and service.
Bill Justus, vice president of Supply Chain Services at David Weekley Homes, started the supplier-assessment platform in 2004 to improve the relationship and interaction between the builder and its suppliers. Ten years later, the company’s National Trading Partner Survey has become a way of life for the builder and its suppliers to ensure both sides are working together toward a common goal of excellence.
“You can’t talk your way to a good score,” says Justus. “The only way to get an ‘A,A’ ranking is through consistent, sustained action.””
This is the first Partners of Choice Award for Uponor, which provides PEX plumbing and fire sprinkler systems for David Weekley Homes.
“We are very honored to receive this recognition,” says Carl Hines, national builder sales manager at Uponor. “Being chosen by the employees of David Weekley Homes as a top supplier is quite humbling, and we intend to continue to provide only superior quality and service in our partnership.
Twin City Hose Completes UL® Classification for Lead-Free* Verification In Compliance With the 2014 Federal Mandate Twin City Hose, Inc. is pleased to announce the completion of UL® Classification for water quality of their V and U thermal/seismic metal expansion joints and straight flexible metal connectors. These UL® Classified assemblies are fabricated domestically using lead-free* Read more
Twin City Hose Completes UL® Classification for Lead-Free* Verification In Compliance With the 2014 Federal Mandate
Twin City Hose, Inc. is pleased to announce the completion of UL® Classification for water quality of their V and U thermal/seismic metal expansion joints and straight flexible metal connectors. These UL® Classified assemblies are fabricated domestically using lead-free* bronze, copper, carbon steel and stainless steel materials.
Underwriters Laboratories®, which is commonly referred to as UL®, is a global, independent, science safety company that has a testing and validation program which is designed specifically for products that convey or dispense water for human consumption. Twin City Hose’s UL® Classification demonstrates compliance with the Federal Reduction of Lead in Drinking Water Act, which revised the definition for “lead free” in the Safe Drinking Water Act. This Federally mandated act came into effect January 4th, 2014, and is in accordance with NSF/ANSI 61 and NSF/ANSI 372 standards. This legislation regulates the maximum allowable contaminant level of lead within potable water piping systems. These products include plumbing hose and fitting assemblies that come into contact with potable water and appliances that provide water for drinking or utilize water in generating beverage or food products.
TO VIEW TWIN CITY HOSE’S LIST OF LEAD FREE PRODUCTS GO TO: WWW.TWINCITYHOSE.COM/UL_CLASSIFIED.HTML
“Twin City Hose is committed to fabricating safe and reliable products that meet the terms of government regulations. We understand the safety concerns and need for classified lead-free hose assemblies and will work closely with the UL® organization to ensure that we are in complete compliance in our commitment to manufacture lead-free products.” says Michael Lowe, President of Twin City Hose.
TOTO USA celebrates 25 years of unsurpassed growth and success in North America by announcing the launch of its newly renovated website, which offers improved usability and resources. The clean, modern redesign provides consumers and building industry professionals with an interactive channel to learn about the company and the expertise that led to TOTO USA’s Read more
TOTO USA celebrates 25 years of unsurpassed growth and success in North America by announcing the launch of its newly renovated website, which offers improved usability and resources. The clean, modern redesign provides consumers and building industry professionals with an interactive channel to learn about the company and the expertise that led to TOTO USA’s becoming a leader in the industry over the last 25 years. The site also offers easy access to new information and articles about the innovation, technology, and design that make TOTO’s sustainable, high-performance products the market’s leader.