In 2018, APV Engineered Coatings celebrated its 140^th anniversary and recorded its highest sales revenue with a six percent year-over-year growth rate.
 
APV experienced the largest year-over-year sales growth in three primary industry segments: aerospace (+18 percent); flexible vinyl, films and textile (+16.5 percent); and tire and rubber manufacturing (+4.25 percent). While much of this growth was attributed to APV’s 400+ existing customers, new business was also up in 2018, by four percent.
 
“As the global economy expanded in 2018, APV was in a good position to meet the increased production demands of manufacturers and key customers,” said Thomas Venarge, president, APV Engineered Coatings. “Many of those customers turned to APV for innovative product developments for niche applications. Some of these niche applications include a binder solution for lithium-ion battery electrodes, maskant slurries and products for high-temperature diffusion coating of turbine blades, anti-graffiti coatings for rolled vinyl, and high-performance PVDF-based topcoats for composite building products…it’s truly diverse.”
 
APV continued its ongoing capacity expansion in 2018 by investing in new production equipment. This included seven new high-speed dispersers, located throughout the plant, that allowed the company to quickly and flexibly scale production to meet rapid-turn orders of any size, from 50 to 2,000-gallon batches. This additional production equipment helped support the approximate 1.7 million gallons of finished product APV produced in 2018.
 
The company currently boasts about 185,000 square feet of manufacturing space, 62,000 square feet of warehouse space and 4,500 square feet of laboratory space over its 22-acre campus. Plans call for APV to build an additional 19,000 square foot warehouse in 2019, which will free about 6,000 square feet of existing warehouse for manufacturing. This is in addition to the 33,000-square-foot warehouse building that was finalized in July 2018.
 
“APV is committed to expanding our physical presence in Akron’s industrial community and to supporting similar expansion by other industrial companies here,” Venarge said. “For example, APV is partnering with county and city officials, the Greater Akron Chamber of Commerce, FirstEnergy and Pleasant Valley Corp. to redevelop 20.5 acres of land owned by Akron and APV into an industrial site called Firestone Business Park.
 
The company broke ground in Dec. 2018, per Venarge.
 
APV also was recognized in 2018 with awards for two of the company’s leading brands.