Maintaining polymer supply chains

Russell Hand, head of product management and technical at Rehau Windows, explores the steps Rehau has taken to ensure stable polymer supplies at this unprecedented, COVID-affected time.

It is not an understatement to say that the events of the last two years have completely upended everyday life and impacted all sectors, including the fenestration industry. One consequence of these lockdowns and social distancing orders has been that householders forced to remain indoors have used money they may have spent on socialising and holidays to improve their home instead.

Indeed, a OnePoll survey taken following pandemic-based disruption in 2020 suggested that homeowners were spending twice as much time on home improvements than they did before lockdown. As a result, the windows industry entered a period of high demand at exactly the same time many material suppliers were forced to close and then adjust their operations to incorporate COVID-safe, socially distanced working.

Rehau, for example, paused production at its window profile manufacturing site in Blaenau Ffestiniog in March 2020 as the first lockdown came into effect. The factory then remained shut to all but essential security staff until new Government rules allowed it to be reopened in June and has continued with Covid-compliant working arrangements as the rules continued to change.

Yet this cannot be chalked down as a short, sharp shock for the sector. As uncertainty continued to dominate throughout 2021, and the Omicron strain remained a concern into this year, demand for frames has endured. Home design experts Houzz & Home, for example, reported in October 2021 that this amount spent on home renovations had surged by 36% over the past year, to a median of £15,000 per household.

Consequently, material supply chains have been put under enormous pressure, with the original six-week period following the first lockdowns being especially challenging. Many companies were forced to shut off ranges due to imported polymer shortages and a lack of other ingredients for the PVC mix, like impact modifiers, pigments and titanium dioxide.

Many smaller suppliers may have been unable to meet demand, and larger organisations were challenged with effectively using existing stocks to facilitate the boom in window orders.

These challenges have not gone away, with the original severe disruption giving way to ongoing – but no less challenging – supply chain strain as social distancing regulations have been loosened. Yet though this pressure was felt by all polymer providers, more sizeable multinational companies were better placed to provide more stable supply and provide pre-COVID support levels in 2022.

Local and global support

Rehau’s network of local and global support, for instance, allowed the company to explore multiple options to keep supply chains going. The Blaenau Ffestiniog plant is a good example of this – when the factory was able to continue production, Rehau put plans in motion to temporarily bring in four skilled extrusion operators from its other European plants, and hired 20 new employees to work on the production lines.

These workers have been retained and were instrumental to the manufacturing site running at 130% of pre-lockdown capacity after re-opening, in order to facilitate demand. Alongside bolstering the workforce, Rehau also invested in the plant’s co-extrusion and lamination lines to help avoid bottlenecks around mono polymer material production.

All lines continue to operate beyond regular hours, and a fourth lamination line was installed in winter 2021 to permanently increase capacity. In an effort to further strengthen supply chains going forward, additional co-extrusion lines are planned for installation in the second half of 2022.

PVCR

Another UK stream of polymer materials Rehau were able to secure came from its sister company, PVCR. The largest PVC recycler in the North West, PVCR’s plant processes over 13,000 tonnes of postconsumer polymer windows and doors every year. This has resulted in heavy and sustained investment, with PVCR moving to a new purpose-built site in Runcorn in 2019, further upgrading its processing capacity.

Rehau’s work with the polymer recycler has mainly been part of its wider efforts to improve sustainability by increasing the company’s recycling capabilities across Europe. However, it has proven invaluable during this period of Covid-based disruption by providing much-needed resource support. By supplementing Rehau’s PVC stocks with a steady supply of co-extruded polymer, it has enabled the company to provide additional materials to the windows industry during Covid that without this recycling infrastructure, would simply not exist.

Parallel production

Despite taking action to reduce reliance on imported materials during this challenging time, these vital steps alone would not be sufficient to maintain stable national supply chains. Though PVC delivery delays have been experienced across the sector, Rehau has used its global reach to best decrease potential waiting times for installers and fabricators.

This involves using the Meraxis Group, another of the company’s sister organisations dedicated to material distribution. A worldwide supplier of polymers and polymer-based products, Meraxis have been instrumental in securing supplies of virgin PVC from around the world for Rehau’s use in the UK, taking further pressure off strained supply chains.

Furthermore, the company was able to temporarily move some of its backup production tools and machines from its Blaenau Ffestiniog plant to facilities in Germany in order to set up parallel production during the busiest periods. A complex logistical undertaking like this is difficult to establish but is a key aspect of the multinational support available to organisations like Rehau.

Consequently, with UK production levels being supported by European facilities making windows for British customers, the company has been able to produce larger bead and sill quantities. Due to this, all product ranges remained available despite the pandemic, and contingency plans are in place to re-establish parallel production if supply chains are again affected in 2022.

This is not to say that Rehau’s supply chains have been unaffected by the pandemic – its impact has been wide-ranging and led to disruption on a scale not seen before. Yet by using its network of local and global support, the company has been able to increase UK PVC availability and production capacity at a very difficult time. As the industry continues to ride out this storm, suppliers such as Rehau can therefore provide a stable port for installers and fabricators in otherwise choppy seas.