Flooring retailers, installers and contractors are potentially looking at increased product pricing due to tariffs when importing goods. Domestically manufactured flooring products like the Performance Accessories lineup provide buying confidence in times of economic uncertainty. Alfredo Donjuan, vice president and general manager of Performance Accessories, talks about the benefits of buying American-made, the importance of providing products that save time and money and reveals more about the new U.S.-made TrueMatch stair solutions that are a 100% match to the flooring and accessories.

The following are excerpts of our conversation, which you can listen to in its entirety below.

Floor Trends & Installation: Give us a brief description of the Performance Accessories product portfolio. 

Alfredo Donjuan: We think about ourselves as a curated portfolio that helps a retailer offer a full and successful installation. What we offer are products from surface preparation all the way from the beginning, from leveling, patching, and priming the floor to make sure it's prepared; odor remover so that you can remove odors before you install flooring; multiple adhesives for glue-down planks or underlayment options for floating planks as well; and to finish the installation, we offer multifunctional matching transitions, quarter rounds, wall base. One of our key products is different stair solutions. 

Floor Trends & Installation: We're currently in a unique political climate that favors domestic manufacturing. Will you share where Performance Accessories products are manufactured and why this is important?

Donjuan: Mohawk has a history of focusing on manufacturing in the United States. We've been very careful in choosing what to manufacture and what we source. Most of the suppliers that we [work with] have manufacturing facilities here in the United States. The majority of the products that we make—trims, transitions, stairs—we manufacture them in our facility in Thomasville, North Carolina. We own a vertically integrated manufacturing process. So, we're proud of ourselves for having the ability to say that. 

We've made a lot of investments on increasing our capacity to make sure that we are aligned with the growth expectations that we have. We are in a very good position where we can not only satisfy the customers’ needs but also improve that customer experience from an availability perspective. It's not often that you are in a position where you have the ability to go to your manufacturing facility, right? If someone needs something, I can just go to the factory and grab a component and put it in the hands of [the person] who needs it. At the same time, we have the ability and the flexibility to resolve issues and come up with solutions that are faster because we not only have vertical integration but also full ownership of those processes.

Floor Trends & Installation: Having the ability to solve problems quickly is critical for business, right?

Donjuan: Absolutely. It also allows us to provide that pricing stability. We reached out to our customers, and we reassured them since we have that capability of manufacturing in the United States, we did not increase prices. We have kept our pricing stable.

Floor Trends & Installation: How important is it for dealers, installers, and contractors to be able to find everything needed to complete a job in one place?

Donjuan: Products in our portfolio are tested with flooring planks so that we can provide a warranty assurance and that peace of mind that the flooring planks are going to perform the way that they were meant to.

We want to make sure that we're providing the direction to the installer that these are all the products that you need to achieve a successful installation.

Floor Trends & Installation: Let's talk about the TrueMatch Stair solutions. Those are also manufactured domestically, correct?

Donjuan: That is correct. This is one of our newest products that we launched this year.

We've spent a couple of years doing research and development, tweaking and fine tuning how to come up with a premium product from a stairs perspective and that we can manufacture in-house. We're proud to say that we own not only the intellectual property but also the machine and the production and vertical integration of it. And it's our newest product for our laminate flooring. We set up that manufacturing capability in our Thomasville facility right on the side on the flooring plank facility as well. For customers that want a premium look in their stairs, this is where TrueMatch comes in. Our TrueMatch stairs, they match 100% the color, the texture, and all of the features of the flooring plank.

Floor Trends & Installation: Did Mohawk design the manufacturing equipment for the TrueMatch products? 

Donjuan: Yes, we actually did the design for it. Mohawk, as a global organization, most of our R&D happens in Europe, in Belgium, so our R&D organization and our team worked together to design and develop not only the process but also the machines. Obviously, we partner with a few people here and there to manufacture the machines, but the design of it, the full intellectual property of the machine, the manufacturing process, and all of that stuff, it's actually owned by us. So, we have full control of it, and we're very proud of it. 

We got feedback from a few customers that are sharing their photos of the installations. It was funny to see that the installer feedback was that it was so easy to install that he was second-guessing he was doing the right way. That was our intention to make sure that it's easier on the installer.