American coatings and specialty materials firm PPG Industries revealed plans last Friday for a $1.7 million expansion project at its coatings production facility in Kunshan, China that will boost the site’s productivity and increase the flexibility of its production operations.

The company intends to install a new dispense cell at the Kunshan plant, which will shorten delivery cycles, cut costs, and lower the amount of emissions released at the site. 

“Our Kunshan facility is tasked with locally supplying our protective and marine coatings for customers in China. This investment will deliver rapid response supply tailored to our protective customers’ needs in China,” Mike Horton, vice president of protective and marine coatings in Asia Pacific at PPG, said in a press release. “The dispense cell will produce the required quantity and quality of protective coatings product in a matter of minutes in an enclosed process that maximizes environmental performance.”

In addition to the protective and marine coatings produced at PPG’s plant in Kunshan, the site is also home to the PPF Asia Research and Development (R&D) Center and a passive fire protection coatings lab.

The company expects the new production assets to be operational by January 2019. 

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