Build October 2016 NEW

Build Magazine 47 Manufacturing & Supply USA Construction Excellence Award every component that makes up a product and weighs their impact on the environment and the per-sonal health of those building, installing or using the products.” The most rigorous program, The Living Building Challenge, has a red list of materials that cannot be used in any capacity of a building compo-nent. The ASSA ABLOY Door Group has made a commitment to finding alternative materials and remove any chemicals on the red list from the manufacturing processes. The company’s engineers and product managers are provided with robust training on environmental impacts and trends, and work closely with sustainability teams to ensure that new product development and designs utilize environmentally friendly components to create sustainable building solutions. Another element that helps to drive the Group’s success is customer relevance. “Although we sell our products through distributor partners, we know we have to stay relevant with everyone in the pro-cess. Our sales agency, Door Security Solutions, is set up to ensure we have coverage of all parties in-volved.” The Group distributors are carefully selected to become valued partners in supplying products to gen-eral contractors. In order to keep these partners educated on the latest products and processes, the various brands offer training at the manufacturing facilities. These educational sessions subsequently offer the ASSA ABLOY Door Group valuable feedback from customers too. In cases where customers may need training but cannot make the scheduled class at the factory, Door Security Solutions sales representatives are available to do local training. This training is an intentional effort to make it easier for customers to do business with the Group. Other such efforts include various e-business programs, such as online quoting and ordering. “The AS-SA ABLOY Group has developed our own estimating software that is available to customers.” The data that makes up this program is shared with similar software programs in the industry for customers who prefer those platforms. Other resources are available that allow customers to track the status of quotes and projects once they’ve been entered. The Door Security Solutions representatives help the Group reach architects with its messages and provide further tools that make specifying their products easier than competitors. Having invested in Building Information Modeling (BIM), architects can pull out details and models directly into their pro-jects. This in turn adds value to the general contractor and end user of the project as it provides a vir-tual building prior to construction. It points out holes in information and issues that normally would not be caught until the time of installation. This saves a tremendous amount of time and money on chang-es during the construction process. Door Security Solutions also help architects understand which ASSA ABLOY Door Group products best suit their project’s applications. Sales representatives offer product training to architectural firms and supply technical information regarding the products and typical applications. Another available option, Door Security Solutions can offer is to write the specification for the project. This saves the architec-tural firm valuable time and resources. The Group is extremely active at industry trade shows where they take the opportunity to showcase their newest products. “At large national trade shows, we host scheduled press conferences and per-form other activities that keep our booth well attended. Attendees are offered on demand electronic literature emailed upon request. This also allows for the capture of contact information with com-ments or questions so that follow up communication can be performed quickly and effectively.” As they work toward continued success in the future, it is imperative for the ASSA ABLOY Door Group to continue to build and cultivate relationships with theiy distributor partners, architects, influencers and end users, so that the company know their needs and are diligent in exceeding them. “We will continue to focus on innovation with an emphasis on sustainability and incorporating cutting edge technology.” “We will continue to focus on innovation with an emphasis on sustainability and incorporating cutting edge technology.”