— VP General Manager stresses new focus on organic growth, value-driven marketing
— Realigns senior management team to keep pace with new market opportunities
Smithfield, RI — Just over a year after consolidating its manufacturing operations at its facility in Buffalo, NY, Perfect Fit Glove is ramping up production and realigning its senior management team to facilitate rapid growth in a number of new markets. Leading the new team is VP General Manager Greg Wall, a 20-year marketing and operations veteran, and Senior Product Manager, Matt Reid, a long-term Perfect Fit Glove industry professional.
Founded in 1973, Perfect Fit Glove became part of the world’s largest personal protective equipment company in 2001 with the formation of Bacou-Dalloz. “Being part of Bacou-Dalloz gives us a tremendous advantage,” said Wall. “With worldwide resources for R&D and manufacturing, an established marketing structure, and field sales force expertise in hand protection, we’re able to develop new technologies and bring them to market with incredible efficiency.
“Most exciting is that we’re finding new ways to quantify the functionality of hand protection. This value-driven approach is helping our customers provide better hand protection and reduce overall costs, and has opened significant market opportunities for Perfect Fit(r).”
“Buying gloves on the basis of price alone can be very costly,” explained Matt Reid, “not only in terms of increased risk to employees, but also in terms of reduced product life and replacement cost. Yet with the exception of cut resistance, the glove industry has been slow to adopt available metrics which define functionality, and few suppliers have the expertise or the presence on the ground to be able to help them. We do.”
According to Greg Wall, Perfect Fit is taking the lead in applying functional parameters to hand protection applications, and in defining new ones. Combined with new product and technology introductions such as the new Carbtex(r) line of heat and flame-resistant gloves, this strategy is helping the company regain previous market share and open the doors to new markets.
As a result, a new product team has been named to increase efficiency in product development and operations. Named as Product Managers reporting to Matt Reid are Bill Soellner, Mary Beth Villalobos, and Mary LaVigne. To more closely align supply, technical support, marketing and manufacturing, a new position of Demand Planning Manager has been created and will be filled by Don Mueller. Rounding out the new team as Purchasing Manager is Adam Liu, who brings an extensive background in international sourcing and inventory management.
“For any company to maximize growth, it has to leverage its core competency,” said Wall, who comes to Perfect Fit from the Packaging Services Division of Grief Inc. where he was also General Manager. “We now have the mechanisms in place to do that. In the past year or so we have not only realigned the entire operation here at Perfect Fit–and gotten our on-time delivery rate back up into the 95% range–but we have also enhanced our ability to innovate, to take ideas from the market, assess needs empirically and create opportunities to grow organically.”
“Through Bacou-Dalloz, Perfect Fit has the field sales resources necessary to build relationships with customers,” said Reid. “And by staying close to our end-users, we are able to learn about their applications and provide the right hand protection for the job. This partnering process ensures that we are in sync with customer needs today, and will be able to develop the hand protection technology they will need tomorrow.”
The Bacou-Dalloz Group is the world leader in the design, manufacturing, and sale of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). The company employs about 6,700 people and operates 48 production facilities. Bacou-Dalloz provides unmatched head-to-toe protection through three strategic business segments: head protection (eye, hearing and respiratory), body protection (gloves, clothes and shoes) and fall protection. Bacou-Dalloz offers a full product range aimed at the manufacturing, construction, telecommunications, medical, public services and other sectors. Their products are available through authorized distributors worldwide.
For additional product information, contact:
Perfect Fit Glove Co., LLC
85 Innsbruck Dr.
Buffalo, NY 14227 USA
Tel: 800-245-6837
Fax: 716-668-3224
Website: www.perfectfitglove.com
Email: perfectfitglove@perfectfitglove.com
