ProVia Milestones: Taking Control of Quality

This article is part of a series on ProVia Milestones, where we cover significant developments that have shaped our company throughout its history.

I began my career with ProVia in 2001, and just one year later, in 2002, I had the opportunity to witness one of many significant milestones in the history of the company: making our own insulated glass.

To appreciate the significance of this time in our history, it’s important to understand the events leading up to it. Since our inception, one of the ProVia’s core values has always been Quality. This was instilled by our Founder, Bill Mullet, and is still a clear advantage provided by ProVia today.

Prior to 2002, we were purchasing insulated glass from an outside supplier. Each unit was carefully inspected upon arrival at our production facility to ensure that our quality standards were met. At times we were compelled to reject products that contained small imperfections like scratches, specks of dust, or fingerprints. These rejections, while necessary, were quite disruptive because it took time to get replacements through our supplier’s production schedule. But our quality standards were non-negotiable.

Even though we didn’t cause them, the scheduling and product delivery disruptions that resulted when we rejected insulated glass products created customer service issues that were challenging to resolve. Of course, everyone wants quality, but they also want their product delivered on time, by the originally scheduled date.

Our leadership made the decision to bring the production of insulated glass in-house, and as you can imagine, there were many steps in this process, from the acquisition of a facility to product naming and marketing. Importantly, this marked our first step into an era of vertical integration, which helps us to deliver on our value of quality in a more efficient and consistent manner.

This move toward vertical integration also enabled a more profound goal, which is fulfilling our purpose as a company. Bill Mullet describes our purpose in this video, where he states “By building doors, windows, siding, stone – whatever the product might be – it’s all in how we serve our fellow man. We fulfill our purpose by giving them the best product in its class. Not just for profit, but for the benefit of the customer.”