Hexion makes the adhesives used in wood panels such as oriented strand board (OSB) and plywood.
“We make the adhesives that go into wood panels, so you think OSB plywood, it's a bunch of pieces of wood glued together.”
Person
Michael Lefenfeld
1 episodes · 21 quoted claims
Michael Lefenfeld describes Hexion as a company about 150 years old with deep materials, process and formula expertise.
“Hexion's 150 year old company. We've got a lot of materials, a lot of processes, a lot of formulas, a lot of, you know, excellence in what we do.”
Hexion ran an internal AI challenge with a first prize of 50,000 for the person or team with the best AI solution to a company problem.
“We did an AI challenge at Hexion. First prize was 50,000 to a person or to a team that came up with an AI solution to one of the problems that we have.”
Michael Lefenfeld states that Hexion's AI strategy does not aim to cut headcount.
“We're not looking to cut headcount, that is not in our strategy at all.”
Michael Lefenfeld says Hexion's board chose him as CEO to lead a transformation focused on growth, based on his entrepreneurial and product-development background.
“I was chosen by the board to come into Hexion through a transformation for growth. My background is entrepreneurial, my background is growing new products, I have patents”
Hexion keeps humans in the loop to double-check AI results because it handles hazardous chemicals at high temperatures and pressures.
“We have all human interactions still, you know, to double-check the results and make sure that we're not leading anything in the wrong direction.”
Hexion uses AI to move production toward what it calls the 'golden batch', a perfect production run with lower raw material and energy use.
“AI enables us to run towards what we call the golden batch, the perfect batch.”
Hexion's smart tech software includes overlays for the press stage of wood panel manufacturing, where heat and pressure form the board.
“We have parts that right now, we have we have overlays that go into the press, which is the heat and pressure that gets applied.”
Hexion offers a product called the Smart Strander, AI software for the machine whose knives cut wood into strips for panels.
“And then we have a product called the Smart Strander.”
Hexion's AI software analyzes plant data that previously sat unused in a data historian and turns it into suggestions for operators.
“Instead of putting it into a data historian where it's gone all these years. It now brings analysis, interpretation, and suggestion for it to run properly.”
Michael Lefenfeld says some operators have strong intuition about production trends, which AI recommendations are meant to complement.
“Some operators are brilliant when it comes to that gut feel interpretation, as they're seeing different trends along their production line.”
Michael Lefenfeld says he has had type 1 diabetes for almost forty years and began using a continuous glucose monitor about a decade ago.
“I'm a type one diabetic. Um, I've been a diabetic for, you know, almost forty years, and let's call it about a decade ago.”
Hexion has given its customer service teams tools to access safety data sheets and product stewardship documents quickly.
“We have enabled our teams with tools to be able to reach through to our SDSs, our safety data sheets”
Michael Lefenfeld says Hexion is privately held, not publicly traded, and uses AI to prepare financial reports faster.
“We're not public, we're a privately held organization, but, you know, public organizations as well are constantly churning that information for the needed shareholder.”
Michael Lefenfeld says Hexion's AI systems are kept internally behind firewalls to protect its data and intellectual property.
“They are kept internally, they are firewalled, um, and we do make sure that our data and our know-how and our, you know, and our intellectual property stay very secure.”
American Securities is the private equity owner of Hexion.
“American Securities is our PE owner, and they are absolutely fantastic.”
American Securities provides Hexion access to an operations group of about a hundred people that the firm pays for.
“they have an entire operations group, a hundred people that they provide to us, they pay for that allows us to borrow from those people.”
Michael Lefenfeld says American Securities has been buying AI companies.
“They own AI companies now, going and buying AI companies.”
Wood panel adhesives are made through batch chemistry in large stirred-tank reactors, unlike continuous-flow processes used in petrochemicals and oil and gas refining.
“The adhesives in the wood panel industry, in the wood industry, are made in what's known as batch chemistry. So big stir tank reactors”
Michael Lefenfeld says AI has not yet changed Hexion's business model but he expects it to add a service component beyond selling chemicals.
“The business model has not changed just yet, but we do see there will be ways to expand the business model between, you know, uh, with a service component”
Michael Lefenfeld argues that with 8 billion people and one-in-a-million ideas, about 8,000 people may hold the same great idea at once, so speed matters.
“Every great idea is one in a million, but there's 8 billion people on the planet, so at any moment in time, 8,000 people have that same exact great idea.”