Creation of meaning of aesthetics

“In order to strengthen supply security and improve our position when negotiating prices for coating material (putty and powder) for our profiles, it was agreed to seek an alternative supplier to paint system. We are looking for a supplier for the full system to strengthen the warranty cover.” (Project Manager, project meeting, December 2014)

The process of creation of the warranty component showed the dependency of the value proposition on the value network.

Building aesthetics, and pursuing a suitable visual quality for the frame, were key issues on the agendas of each project and Steering meeting, from 2013 until the end of 2014. Every time an issue related to the visual quality of the frame, regardless of whether it was due to production mistakes by Woodstock’s board or in the painting system and procedure, considerable costs were added. Yet, very positive feedback was obtained from the market: “we are selling. Our customer is ordering more and more, and we managed to produce more, so we are in a risk of success” [said laughing!] (Senior Project Manager, Interview, beginning 2014). This encouraged the company to invest to find the right solution.

Complexity was added by the fact that Woodstock needed to provide customers with multiple profiles in different colours, while each of the colours needed to be developed separately and tested against all the standard tests. The profiles needed to have a “visually acceptable quality”

(internal document, 2013) for the industry, when compared with the visuals of an aluminium profile. If the quality was found to be unacceptable to customers, profiles were rejected, resulting in a significant amount of waste and, therefore, costs increased, meaning appearance became a feature labelled in Steering meetings as one of the “major risks.”

“Our customer rejected 20-60% of the profiles in the latest 3 orders (14-18, 14-19 and 14-20) due to poor visual quality (wool tufts), but we were aware that this specific production of vr00 was not good, and the profiles have been put on hold.” (Project meeting, 2014)

“We have two major issues from the perspective of visual quality: loose wool tufts and uneven surfaces. This has put the waste rate up to 40% for our customers, which is far too high! Our customer is very concerned. It is difficult to predict which profiles will not look nice after they have been painted, and our customer is aware of this as they have seen profiles that looked nice before they were painted, but not after” (Project meeting, 2014).

As the development of this type of profile and paint for the Woodstock profile was an innovation, the team was working in a context of very high uncertainty. Their trial and error attitude helped them develop the product systematically, while also learning the problems. “It is difficult to predict” became the general statement for 2013 and 2014. This component of the value proposition brought many actors involved in the business together in a very tightly-coupled system, as an error in visual production would have negative effects on waste level and cost suppliers, the customer and Pinta Inc.’s production factories. Managers of Woodstock realized that they needed to create a common understanding and a strong agreement, to guarantee the precedence of the concept of quality and visual quality, among the entire value chain. Therefore, after coordinating with their customer and painting and coating suppliers, Woodstock developed a “quality library” with failed and successful profiles. This library was situated at the production facilities (see more under the value chain section, where the interruptions raised at Pinta’s production facilities are analysed), customer, and suppliers.

“We are now working on a quality library with examples of surface phenomena. Acceptance criteria are to be coordinated between us, our customer and our suppliers” (Steering meeting, 2013).

One of the most important decisions regarding the identity of Woodstock and its visual quality was that suggested by the new Business Director of the BU, and related to the takeover of the project. He witnessed that development team was looking for reference points concerning the visual aspect of the aluminium profiles. When conducting ageing tests, at one point the results were poor for the Woodstock profile, although the visual aspect was the same. Debates about having the right measurement began, and the question “should we listen to the numbers or to our subjective evaluation of the visual quality?” (Portfolio Manager, Steering meeting, 2013) emerged. The Vice President of Innovation reminded the team that they were running quality tests to create a solid business case, targeting a low complaining ratio, and the fact that the end-customer would evaluate the profiles, suggesting that the visual look was more relevant then the results of the tests where aluminium profiles performed better. In this situation, the new director

suggested situating the product in the marketplace as a new type of frame, to stop references to wood or aluminium windows, which were both misleading for customers and punitive to Woodstock. He admitted the uniqueness of the Woodstock profile and the fact that the comparison should be relative, not direct and absolute:

“Business Director: is there any way of defining a bit more objectively what is good and what is not good and what's good enough? That’s the problem we have. The samples we showed at the beginning where seen as not good enough and now they have started looking at everything with a microscope and say this is not perfect. We should say wait a minute, is that fair judgment? I think it is very subjective!

Project Manager: the normal standard in this industry is that you should look from 3 meters away. This will not be a direct competitor for aluminium, but then you should be ready to emphasize the problems of aluminium, if you were looking at the alum profile close-up, you would see defects as well, impressions and other things.

Business Director: we just make it clear to the customers thatthey shouldn’t compare itto wood, thatthey shouldn’t compare it to aluminium, it is just a category in itself and then you can do a relative comparison. Ok, this is what aluminium looks like, this is what wood looks like, and this is what our stuff looks like. Right now we don’t have the right perspective on it.

We should go for third look; we should communicate this as a new service; don’t try to persuade people this is wood and don’t make them believe it is aluminium.” (Steering meeting, 2014)