“This 15,000-square-foot facility continues our company legacy of innovation by allowing us to assess, evaluate, prototype and launch new products at an industry leading pace that ultimately creates a competitive edge for our customers,” McRickard said.
Dayton Superior’s products can be found on construction projects worldwide, but McRichard said the private company, which has more than 1,200 employees worldwide, took pride in opening the center in the Miami Valley.
“I’m proud that Dayton Superior’s innovation center will contribute to the region’s rich history of innovation and invention,” he said.
McRickard said the company plans to hire the best talent for the facility and added that some of the best came from local universities.
University of Dayton graduate Holly Mahoney, a chemist, said she was hired specifically to work in the new lab when she graduated earlier this year. The lab makes her excited to work at the company, she said.
“It’s always a good feeling when you want to come to work,” Mahoney said.
The new center showcases a new way of developing ideas, which the company calls “Superior Technology Evolution Pipeline,” or STEP for short, by housing a chemical lab, a lab to create basic parts and check for instabilities, and a conference room within a few hundred feet of space, facilitating worker’s abilities to meet with each other in the middle of a project and collaborate.
The new center also has a 3D printer to design parts more quickly and uniquely, according to Josh Isan, a product manager who works in the Innovation Center.
“It’s a lot of product innovation,” McRickard said. “It just takes a second to sit down with our customers for them to tell us exactly what they’d like us to work on. So we’re the leader in the industry, and I think that’s my job, is to keep rolling out products as fast as we can.”
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