As we celebrate our second anniversary as a company, I thought I’d share some reflections and thoughts about our future. Before I do, I want to thank all of you for being a part of Trillium Flow Technologies’ early success and helping to form our great future. Without our great team, none of our achievements would have been possible, and our future would not look so bright.
Looking Back
The second full year of Trillium Flow Technologies was certainly headlined by our impressive response to the global pandemic. Our team of 2300 employees faced unprecedented uncertainty for the business and everyone’s wellbeing by staying true to our values. We collaborated to protect each other and our families while continuing to meet the needs of our customers around the world. We quickly adopted new and innovated ways to communicate both internally and externally with customers and other stakeholders. Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and other means of communication have become commonplace. We’ve learned that we can be physically apart, but still together as a team and remain very productive. I’m most impressed with how we have adopted new ways to reach our customers. Through digital marketing, technical webinars, webcasts, and the launch of our podcast, we have continued to better learn about our customers and convey to them the value we can add to them.
This past year we have accelerated our Sustainability program. We have further institutionalized efforts to improve the environment, broaden our social efforts internally and in our communities, and we have strengthened our compliance and governance across the company. The formation of the Green Team has connected us and provided direction for many of these efforts. This team is off to a great start and we look forward to their on-going progress.
In the recent past we have demonstrated our commitment to Sustainability by making a multi-million-dollar investment in a solar power system at our Fresno facility. Additionally, Mehgan Wichuk and Candace Jasso have greatly advanced our third party and trade compliance programs. It’s important that we have processes, tools and education in-place for our employees that help to operate with the highest level of integrity in all that we do.
Also, in our second year we have continued our journey to becoming One Trillium. This initiative is intended to leverage the strength of our collective team, resources, products, brands and systems to be more customer focused and to better deliver on our promises. This program started back in 2018 when we globalized our sales team. Following our successful formation in our first year, this program continued to take shape over the past twelve months as we have simplified our operating footprint and legal entity structure. We have also added resources to progress our lean initiatives and strengthen our functional reporting to be more efficient and to better support our manufacturing plants. As the new structure continues to unfold and we make new connections with each other, I’m excited to see what’s instore for our business.
In the first two years of Trillium, we have made great strides to improve our customer service performance. Our plants’ on-time deliveries have improved, our cost of poor quality has dropped, and we are simply being more responsive to customers. Additionally, we continue to tackle challenging applications that help us become more relevant to our customers while expanding our capabilities. Lastly and most importantly, we have learned to better support customers throughout the life cycle of an application. We are working with customers to apply and design solutions, supporting installation at the site, and providing great aftermarket support and service. Which has all resulted in significant growth in our aftermarket business.
Lastly, last year we refinanced the company to make us financially stronger and to achieve better financing terms. Which in addition to making us more resilient through market challenges, better positions us to grow through M&A. We made our first acquisition in our second year and we plan to do many more. Again, I’d like to welcome the Red Point team to Trillium.
Looking to the Future
As we look to the future, we will continue to face market challenges due to the lingering effects of the pandemic. Therefore, we must continue to improve our connection to customers, always work to better understand their needs, and meet our commitments to them. To do so, we will continue to better organize ourselves through our One Trillium program, invest in people and processes, and grow through M&A with the aim to improve customer service and relevance. Additionally, we will hasten the work of the Product Directors, Engineering and Technology Excellence Committees and product development teams to expand our product offerings and bring new ways of solving customer problems to the market.
Though we face many end-market challenges, there is still considerable market opportunity for us. We have drafted a five-year strategic plan that has many detailed initiatives. But in summary, in mature markets, we will focus on organic initiatives that expand our aftermarket business and we will work to add more value to our existing market segments and customers. We plan to do so through improved day to day operational execution, development of new sales and service channels, and through M&A. In markets where we see strong market growth, we will aggressively track projects, specify technology that adds value to our customers, build a supporting aftermarket business, and add products and services through our M&A initiatives. Our M&A pipeline is robust. The next few years should bring the closing of several bolt-on and transformative deals for the company.
I want to end this note on safety. Our safety program is good, and we have made progress in making it better over the past two years. However, through our third year and beyond, we must improve personal accountability and behaviors related to safety such that we reach our goal of Zero Harm. We continue to have too many accidents, especially related to hands and fingers. Therefore, we must find new ways to stay focused on the task, improve our risk assessments, and ensure we are using the right tool for the job. Improved safety will always be part of our future.
In closing I’d like to wish all of you, a Happy 2nd Birthday to Trillium Flow Technologies. The first two years have been challenging yet successful. The next several years and beyond look very bright indeed.
All the best,
David A. Paradis
CEO
