INVISTA - Going from strength to strength

Dec 11 2006 By The Journal

A great deal can happen to a company in two years. During the first 18 months of the newly created INVISTA, the company's strategies were focused on getting healthy.

The site at Wilton was no exception and since INVISTA became an independently managed but wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries Inc on April 30, 2004, the site has been working hard to improve its profitability. Having achieved this objective INVISTA is now pursuing growth.

For those who work at INVISTA, there is no other organisation quite like it.

INVISTA was merged with KoSa, a producer of commodity and speciality polyester fibres, polymers and intermediates two years ago.

The company as a whole produces a variety of products, the most commonly known are brand names such as LYCRA®, CORDURA®, COOLMAX®, POLYSHIELD®, and ANTRON® (*see footnote).

On the Wilton site, INVISTA Intermediates operates a world class nylon intermediates petrochemical site producing Nylon 6,6 polymer and ADI-PURE® High Purity Adipic Acid.

The site is a highly complex integrated manufacturing chain, in which INVISTA is making significant ongoing investments to drive continuous manufacturing improvement and to help grow its global Intermediates business.

INVISTA Performance Technologies (IPT) is based at Wilton Centre. IPT provides the resources and technology to deliver proven, world scale technology for licensing in purified terephthalic acid (PTA), polyester polymerization for fibre and PET resin, as well as large-scale polyester staple fibre spinning machines.

IPT is broadening its licensing portfolio to include technology offerings that support the nylon and spandex value chains as well as further exploiting its strengths in polyester products and processes. IPT has offices in the USA and China as well as Wilton.

The company's shareholder, Koch Industries, Inc. is a privately held company based in Wichita, Kansas. It owns a diverse group of companies employing about 80,000 people and has a presence in nearly 60 countries worldwide.

According to a list recently published by Forbes, Koch is the largest privately held company in the US (Forbes, Nov 27, 2006). And with estimated revenues exceeding $90bn if traded publicly would rank around 15th in the list of Fortune 500 companies.

Koch's commitment to reinvesting over 90% of its earnings back in its businesses gives an edge to the group of companies it owns. What makes the company unique is the philosopher at its helm, Chairman and CEO, Charles Koch.

Both he and the organisation he leads place great emphasis on the value of hard work, integrity, humility and a lifelong dedication to learning.

"At INVISTA, we apply the power of the market economy inside the company", says Douglas Annan, site manager at Wilton. " This is called Market Based Management® (MBM). The MBM® framework is a distinctive business and management philosophy that helps us to create long term value."

The organisation can only achieve these results through the talented workforce it employs. Market Based Management® leads INVISTA to develop ideas committed to delivering long term value to the business, whilst actively seeking opportunities to bring new people into the company with the values and skills to make a positive impact.

Integral to INVISTA is the values it has around health, safety and environmental issues. "We encourage reaching out to stakeholders as well as assisting with projects that educate, protect the environment and improve the quality of life in the community," added Dr Annan.

"Following the tremendous effort by our employees, contractors and support services, we have seen an amazing turnaround in the profitability of the plants at Wilton and hence the view of their long term success. I now look forward to continue implementing our strategies for growth".

• LYCRA®, CORDURA®,COOLMAX®, POLYSHIELD®, ADI-PURE®and ANTRON®are registered trademarks of INVISTA