Lancaster, Pa.—For more than 80 years, the Robbins Hardwood Flooring name has stood for elegance, style and quality. To ensure its legacy continues, Armstrong World Industries has re-launched the brand with a focus on premium, upper-end products that are at the forefront of today’s style trends and positioned them in a new merchandising unit designed to reflect the luxurious lifestyle of the floors. This initiative was undertaken following an extensive in-house quality control project which targeted every aspect of Armstrong’s wood operations.

“It started from the top,” said Brent Bunnell, head of quality control. “Our CEO, Michael Lockhart, made it a priority for us to improve our overall wood operations. And, he has stayed very much involved. Every two weeks he meets with me and our quality control teams to get updated. It truly amazes me the level of support and participation he takes in making sure our quality is the best it can be. In fact, this project started over a year ago and he has never missed a meeting.” Frank Ready, president and CEO of Armstrong Flooring Products (AFP) NA, said, “The objective allowed us to not only find improvements in our many processing systems but add more choices to our product mix, especially with regard to our Robbins brand which has been revived with a whole new look and attitude.”

In terms of Armstrong’s overall quality, and why such an extensive project has been undertaken, he explained, “We’re not sure if we, in some way, went down or others accelerated up. But, whatever the reason, we recognized we were not leveraging our scale as the largest wood flooring manufacturer and our brands, such as Robbins which has a long and proud tradition.” Bunnell added, “This is a journey, not a one-time project. This way, as the industry changes so will we—we are the market leader and, therefore, we must be the leader.” It began by taking an honest assessment of the company’s chain of operations—from getting the wood to packing the finished product—by speaking with each type of customer along with its sales staff. “It truly was the voice of the customer,” he noted.

“Our customers are like the layers of an onion in that we have consumers, installers, dealers, builders, distributors, designers, etc. There are lots of layers as to who the customer is and we spoke with them all on quality issues in both solid and engineered woods.” The results were a number of procedural changes, “some very simple,” Bunnell said, “such as upgrading our light stations or re-orienting the way we stack wood to dry, but many may yield surprises in terms of giving us better results than expected.” Other changes were advances in technology as Armstrong developed a patented process to treat veneer, and a patent pending method to measure the level of “overwood” on either side of a joint in an engineered floor.

“This venture has also allowed us to get everyone on the same page in terms of realizing that we are not in the lumber business, but rather, to treat each board as a piece of fine furniture,” he said. “We want all our operations to be running as one, not as a bunch of independent operations.” “It’s been a struggle,” Bunnell noted, “but we’ve seen dramatic improvements over the past seven months. In some cases our claims have dropped by 60% or more.” For Robbins, Armstrong created a new merchandising system that has a more upscale, high-fashion edge in its visual and graphic design, said Richard Quinlan, AFP’s wood products manager.

“The new look will signal to the discriminating homeowner this is truly distinctive flooring for out-of-ordinary lifestyles.” Though it occupies 17 square feet, it can hold more than 50 samples and can be expanded with an additional module and sample slots. It features two distinct areas—a waterfall format and two winged racks, one featuring oversized 20X32-in. samples and the other being identical to the waterfall to enable more marketing flexibility. “We’re not only bringing out a new line of exotic woods and trendsetters,” Quinlan explained, “we’re presenting them in a way that was not done in the past. The idea is to focus on premium, upper-end goods, including exotics.

“Overall,” he continued, “we’re giving the consumer a variety of looks, feels and value-adds with this collection.” Some of the new collections that make up the initial re-launch of the line include: • Legno Vestuto and Legno Lavorato. A line of aged solid oak planks which “capture the essence of handcrafted wood floors”; • Fenton Crest. Featuring engineered ash and merbau in 5-in. wide planks that are enhanced by long, linear graining; • Gatsby. A solid wide plank in oak and birch that is handscuplted and combines “a rustic, yet elegant refinement”; • Urban Exotics. An exotic engineered line of cherry, walnut and pecan that features “subtle, yet distinctive patterns of light and dark texture and tone”; • Passeggiata. These extra long planks are made of varying lengths fastened end-to-end and feature engineered ask, kempas and red oak; • Handford. A 5-in. wide engineered line of whitewashed or handsculpted oak and ask; • Canadian Birch Strip & Plank. Available in solid birch, it comes in three lengths— 2-1/4-, 3-1/4-, and 4-1/4-in.—for an endless array of application choices, and • Canadian Maple Strip & Plank.

Not only is this solid maple line available in the three widths as Canadian Birch, it features as extra wide 5-1/4-in. plank to more effectively showcase the unique characteristics of the floor. “Overall,” concluded Ready, “we feel very good about this objective. We’ve made significant strides in quality at all facets of the operation so now people can feel pride in selling Armstrong Wood Floors, whether they be under the Bruce, Robbins or Hartco brands.”