Powell Valves: Building a better valve every day

Work ethic, culture, and compassion

“Powell’s customers have and will continue to benefit from the large, finished valve inventories the company maintains in our hubs in the U.S.A. and China, along with our stable manufacturing flow. Powell was able to ‘walk the talk’ highlighting our superior service during the recent pandemic,” said Cowart.

“The work ethic, culture, and compassion that embody the employees of The Wm. Powell Company is what will allow us to continue to succeed regardless of the challenges in the marketplace.”

Powell has maintained its longevity and stability in the valve industry by providing the highest quality products with cutting-edge design features, competitive prices with excellent service, on-time deliveries, and flexibility. Quality-engineered products are a foundation. As Randy Cowart, Chairman and CEO explained, “No quality = no sales. No sales = no jobs.” Cowart further commented, “We are laser-focused on the quality of all things, namely people, products, service, responsiveness, manufacturing, actions, and more.” As a privately held, family-owned corporation, Powell continues to build on its legacy of quality, innovation, and family-style company culture focused on customers.

“We have integrity in everything we do. We may be a smaller company, but we have big-company resources, opportunities, possibilities, and capabilities. It allows us to be nimble, flexible, and proactive, versus reactive. This allows us to get ahead in meeting our customers’ needs which is our core focus,” Cowart explained.

The flexibility and speed to move with customer and industry needs are attributes that have served them well in the past, present, and will continue in the future.

We are family: The Powell company culture

Customer-first, positive energy, teamwork, performance, quality, adaptability, flexibility, and integrity are the cornerstones of the company culture.

As a family-owned business, Powell greatly values their employees, and through them, they can extend the family environment to their customers, their customers’ customers, and throughout their supply chain.

“The family environment has been instilled in the company and our employees for a very long time – my father, Randy Cowart, is only the ninth CEO and Chairman of the company. Having that number in 178 years is unique – we have competitors who have had that many presidents in the last several years. The stability, integrity, and family values held throughout the company means that our employees have a lot of pride in their work and pride in our customer relationships,” said Cowart. Every Powell employee, from the front door to the shipping dock, is an entrepreneur.

Every daily task performed touches a customer. That belief and culture is evident from the CEO throughout the organization. Powell’s longevity and sustainability stem from the company’s strong culture, and ability to take risks.

Their financial strength and stability allow the company to react to the customers’ needs swiftly. The company leadership executes plans and strategic objectives to service the customer and grow their market share.

Digital frontrunner

Powell has been employing their strong company culture and employee commitment through their recent investments in further defining their project management groups and ensuring greater involvement from the staff at all levels.

The company has put several proactive communication tools in place throughout the capital project supply chain. Their goal is to make that project management process more transparent for the manufacturer, distributor, EPC, and end-user. Their Proactive Order Management and Milestone Reporting deliver accurate real-time information that assists with keeping capital projects on time and budget.

The company recognizes that the fast digital availability of product information is essential to their customers and to keep at the forefront of digitalization. With their customers’ needs in mind, Powell has made several updates to their website to ensure a superior visitor experience both from desktop and mobile devices. As such, Powell Valves’ website won a Gold Award in the Manufacturing Website Category in the 2019 AVA Digital Awards and is continuously upgrading its site with additional enhancements to ensure it continues to add value to our customers.

Diversified customer base

Despite the issues that many have encountered with the economic downturns, Powell’s customer diversity has allowed them to grow continually. Powell recognized early on the importance of diversification, not only in the products developed, but in the markets, industries, and customer bases served.

“Having a diverse customer base has been one of the biggest success points for the company. Through the years, there have been some tough economic cycles in one industry or another – be it oil & gas, electric power generation, chemical, paper, or industrial gas. Very rarely are all of those industries on the downward slope economically at the same time. Having a diverse customer base in so many different industries has allowed us to maintain consistent growth,” revealed Cowart.

“A lot of our products are standard but can be tailored or upgraded for different industries with our immense engineering support and manufacturing expertise behind it. Our product diversity, engineering capabilities, and diversity in our customer base is a big foundation for our success as compared to our competitors who may focus on one industry; they live and die by the success of that one industry.”

Wide product scope under one roof

Powell’s long-term strategy is to continue to expand on products that assist their channel partners in completing the package not only for its day-to-day MRO customers, but also for the large capital projects. “Powell Valves’ product offering has grown in response to demand from our customer base; they are looking for more products from a single manufacturing source that they can depend on,” explained Cowart. “Powell can provide a wide product scope under one stock order which results in freight savings and administrative cost savings.”

Cryogenic clean rooms

“As an engineering-based company, research, and development (R&D) is one of our foundations. Even though there are governing bodies that control a lot of the design parameters, there are still areas where we can maximize material cost, and machining efficiencies and tolerances,” revealed Cowart. “Another factor in our success is Powell’s high-quality supply chain. Our casting, forging, and component suppliers are among the best in the industry, and we have total alignment and commitment to each other.”

Powell has a corporate engineering team in Cincinnati along with engineering teams in their manufacturing plants. The company states that its valve engineering has always been a leader in the industry with a heritage of writing the foundation of many of the specifications in use today. Powell also continues to invest in machinery, training, inventory, and infrastructure at all their locations. Acknowledging the growth in industrial gas and LNG markets, Powell has made significant investments in state-of-the-art cryogenic clean room and testing facilities. They now have four global cryogenic clean rooms.

In addition to manufacturing and in-house modification facilities, Powell continues to maintain a large inventory around the world to ensure that their products are readily available wherever their customers are. The company looks for channel partners that have a defined strategy, a good channel infrastructure, and customer focus. “Powell’s Distributor Channel is the best of the best,” said Cowart.

Globally accessible inventory

Maintaining a global presence has allowed Powell to remain competitive and successful in an industry that is fast paced with urgent needs to be met worldwide. By investing in extending its global reach with the establishment of manufacturing and distribution centers in China to supply sales throughout Asia and the Middle East, Powell recognizes the importance of a worldwide infrastructure in support of its business. Powell maintains finished valve inventories in Orangeburg, South Carolina, USA; Manning, South Carolina, USA; Stafford, Texas, USA; and China.

“By establishing distribution facilities in different geographies and time zones, Powell is able to increase our service to our customers and further support same-day emergency services.”

“We established the facility in Stafford and stocked it up with inventory, so our products are at-hand for our customers. That was one of those “customer-first” decisions of ensuring we have material our customers are looking for in close proximity,” said Cowart.

New HQ in Cincinnati

In the spring of 2021, Powell constructed and moved into a new Corporate Headquarters and distribution center in Cincinnati, Ohio. The new facility is 46,000 square feet and houses the company’s executive team, engineering, sales (domestic and international), supply chain management, logistics, accounting, and finance. Approximately 30,000 square feet of the facility will serve as an inventory hub to provide additional service and availability to our Mid-West distributor partners.

“Powell has a long heritage in the Cincinnati area. We are proud of that heritage and happy to have made an expansion and investment in our community. The new facility provides a great environment for our employees and a great service to our customers,” said Randy Cowart, Chairman and CEO. Brandy Cowart concluded: “Just saying the customer comes first may sound cliché, but that is the focus of everything we do. Taking risks, making investments, and being nimble and quick are all driving us to provide a better service, a better quality for the customer, and a superior experience for our customers. We want to be the customer’s favorite place to call, and we want them to call us first.”