The housing industry may be a bust, but production of Tyvek, a material that functions as an air and moisture barrier, is going strong at DuPont’s Spruance plant. Spruance accounts for nearly all North American production of the material, annual sales of which have surpassed $1 billion globally. DuPont, which invested $25.5 million to boost production capacity two years ago, may expand again in five to six years, reports the Times-Dispatch today.
Since DuPont introduced Tyvek HomeWrap in 1979, the product has been installed in about five million homes. That’s enough, says James Katsaros, who leads product development efforts in the company's building innovations business, to wrap the world 20 times over. Sales have dropped as the housing market has slowed, but not enough to dent expectations for long-term growth or the anticipated need for new investment and job creation. The company’s productions lines are still humming along at close to peak capacity.
Demand continues to increase for the polymer fiber-based material as energy costs rise, building codes mandate energy efficiency in new building construction and DuPont pioneers new uses for Tyvek in such applications as sterile packaging, envelopes, clothing tags and protective garments.
"For 41 years, it has gone into thousands and thousands of small and niche applications, and it takes constant effort to uncover those," a DuPont official told the Times-Dispatch. Tyvek is used in envelopes and packages because it does not tear easily and is resistant to water. Some applications are totally unexpected: Orange growers, for instance, are laying Tyvek mulch around their fruit trees.
Meanwhile, just as DuPont has pioneered new applications for its Kevlar and Nomex fiber-based products in high-performance apparel, it is putting Tyvek into garments as well. The SARS outbreak in China spurred demand for protective clothing for medical and emergency responders.
DuPont has to stay on the cutting edge of innovation because the success of the 30-year-old product has inspired literally dozens of competitors, many of them from China, to enter the market for energy-efficient building materials.
Bacon's bottom line: There is no time to rest in the ferociously competitive marketplace of the global economy. DuPont has maintained a competitive advantage only because it has assiduously worked to boost manufacturing productivity and has invested continuously in innovation. Rising energy costs and increasing demand for Tyvek's air and moisture barriers are fortuitous, but, with the increase in competition, DuPont would not be in a position to benefit if it hadn't steadily upgraded the product over the past 30 years.