DuPont Evolving for 21st Century

DuPont, will celebrate its 200th anniversary on July 19, 2002 and is looking to reinvent itself for the 21st century. DuPont has evolved from an early 19th-century gunpowder maker into an international conglomerate with hundreds of products.

In February of this year the company reorganized its business units into five market- and technology- focused growth platforms. The growth platforms are: Electronic & Communication Technologies; Performance Materials; Coatings & Color Technologies; Safety & Protection, and Agriculture & Nutrition.

Reinventing the company also means that Dupont will cut loose some product lines that helped define the company during the 20th century, most notably nylon, which DuPont invented and commercialized in women’s stockings in 1939. The company also said it will spin off or sell its textiles and interiors division next year to focus on higher-growth businesses.

Located on 550 acres in Chesterfield County, the Spruance site has evolved with the company. It started operations in 1929 manufacturing artificial silk, or Rayon, with 550 employees. Rayon production was eventually shut down, but today the plant is DuPont’s largest with about 2,550 employees.

The plant’s top three products are Kevlar, Tyvek and Nomex. Tyvek is a chemical-resistant fabric used in protective apparel, home wrap, medical packaging and envelopes. Nomex is a flame-resistant material and is used, among other things, in aircraft manufacturing. And Kevlar is a lightweight, high-strength fiber invented by the company in 1965 and best known for its use in bullet-resistant vests.

Last year, DuPont announced a $50 million investment at Spruance to boost production of Kevlar. Construction is under way on a new production line that will use technology specifically designed to make a type of Kevlar used in military applications. These products are part of the company’s new safety and protection platform, a $3.9 billion business.

Spruance is also the world headquarters for DuPont’s Advanced Fibers Systems. Analysts who follow the company see the safety and protection business as one of the strongest growth platforms for DuPont.

Over the years as the company’s product mix has changed the Spruance plant has benefited from new investments. In 1992 DuPont closed its industrial nylon production at the plant after a fire destroyed some equipment, resulting in the loss of about 700 jobs. Two years later the company built a $30 million plant at the site of the old nylon operations to make Zytel, plastic pellets used in car engines, electric wires and bicycle tires.

The future of the Spruance site depends on its ability to keep bringing in new products…that, in turn, depends on its efficiency and ability to compete with other plants for new investments.

Another DuPont operation in Chesterfield County is just off Enon Road in the eastern part of the county. DuPont Tejin Films is a 50-50 joint venture with a Japanese company established to secure an Asian market for polyester film. The plant has been producing Mylar and Melinex after DuPont acquired the plant, and the brands, in a $600 million purchase of the polyester films business of ICI, a British chemical conglomerate, in 1998.

The plant has 530 DuPont employees and 130 contract workers. It makes about 115 million pounds of film a year for use in a wide range of products including food packaging, LCD screens, overhead transparencies and photographic film.

The site has also become the base for the unit’s North American operations, which has meant transferring customer service, research and development, information technology and finance jobs here.

DuPont’s James River plant on Bellwood Road was built in 1947 and produces the sulfuric acid used to make other DuPont products at the Spruance site. It employs about 50 people.