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George Coy and son Matt Coy,
of Clean Plus, Inc., make a new board.
NRRI technician Bob Vatalaro and Matt
Coy taking out the finished board
About Clean Plus,
Inc.
In 1987, CEO George Coy bought
out a company that manufactured industrial-strength hand soap,
building the Clean Plus Hand Soap line which makes up his
chemical division.
He added an auto parts division that produces Victory Lap
starter and alternator repair kits, a glass division that
manufactures treated towels and other products for the auto
glass installation industry, and now added Drip Trap TM ,
its newest division.
CPI exports products to Canada , Mexico , Europe, Russia and
the Middle East with sales of around $2.5 million.
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George Coy
was under the gun. His company, Clean Plus, Inc., (CPI) had to produce
30,000 items in a new product line for one of his best—and most
demanding—customers by January 23. It was a bit nerve-wrecking for
this small business of 22 employees because they faced a lot of
challenges when developing the product that no one has ever manufactured
before, pulling it together through trial and error.
Coy is grateful that NRRI's Forest Products group had the experience
and enthusiasm to help them move the product from the lab to production.
The new product is called Drip Trap TM . It's an oil absorbing mat
made of corn leaves and stalks after harvest that NRRI initially
developed and patented through the University of Minnesota . CPI
purchased the rights to the license and their first customer is
very excited about selling it. Maybe too excited. Thirty thousand
is a tall order, but Coy is pleased with the promising success of
Drip Trap.
“We're about one-third of the way there,” Coy said in mid-December.
“NRRI has been very important to getting us off the ground with
this. They know plywood, oriented strandboard and particle board
and we really leaned on their experience.”
CPI president Matt Coy, also George's son, agrees. “The staff at
NRRI applied their knowledge of wood fiber manufacturing technology
to establish production methodology for making the absorbent board
from corn fiber.”
Brian Brashaw, NRRI wood products program director, held a 3-day
course he called “Cornboard 101” for CPI employees to work out the
details of making the Drip Trap TM corn boards. And later when they
had problems blending adhesives, NRRI technician Matt Aro went to
West Concord , Minn. , with a batch blender so they could work on
the problem.
These efforts helped CPI ramp up production of this new product
in a way that minimized the overall financial drag on the company,
Coy explained.
Once this first order is complete, the company would like NRRI's
help to quantify some of the variables they face in making the boards—moisture
in the corn fibers, temperature, adhesive quality, pressure on the
press, etc. Coy said he doesn't like to rely on trial and error
and would like to be able to predict the outcome of the boards based
on the known condition of the fiber and other variables going in.
They're hoping for funding from the Environmental Assistance Grant
Program to do this research.
“I can't articulate how helpful it is to know that we can call Brian
and get a response. But I don't know where he was when we had to
bale, move and stack 600 bales of cornstalks!” Coy added with a
laugh.
Reprinted with permission from the Winter 2007 edition of NRRI
Now, a publication of the Natural Resources Research Institute,
University of Minnesota, Duluth.
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