Tredegar technical center consolidates R&D functions

by Robert Burke
for Virginia Business
July 2005

Richmond’s Tredegar Film Products is hoping that its new streamlined approach to developing products will make customers happy. Last month the company, a subsidiary of Tredegar Corp., completed the move of its R&D facilities in Indiana and Illinois to a new technical center in Richmond.
Putting the product development and testing facilities closer to the company’s marketing, sales and senior management staff in Richmond will help get products through the development phase more quickly, says research and development director Tony Silwanowicz. “It really is about being more customer-focused and more responsive to marketplace needs,” he says.

Tredegar Film Products makes materials used in a wide range of products, including personal-care products such as baby diapers, along with household-care products and specialty materials. Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble is Tredegar Film Products’ largest customer, supplying more than 55 percent of its revenue last year.

Silwanowicz says the company’s 45,000-square-foot technical center will help it fine-tune the production processes of new products “so that we can more quickly develop these new products that the marketplace or our customers are expecting from us.”

The technical center opened in early June, increasing Tredegar Film’s employment in Virginia by 35 to 40 people, Silwanowicz says.