STAGE/GATE

How do we go from idea to innovation? We ask for directions.

Even with 85 years of experience making a full range of complementary hard and soft floors, Mannington doesn’t pretend that we have a corner on the future of floor covering. The company that stays out in front is the company that has learned to listen.

We figured out a long time ago that good products couldn’t be made in a vacuum. Inspiration comes from the marketplace – or in other words, our customers. It’s customer input we value highest. So rather than just asking "What do you think?", we show every potential product to our customers and ask a lot of questions to find out exactly how this product works - or doesn't work for them. There is a heck of a lot of wisdom in that old saying, “The customer is always right.”

Not everyone has this listening thing down. Many companies try so hard to be efficient or stylish that they fail to be effective. They detour at roadside attractions and fail to create what their customers need. It is our continuing drive to meet customer needs and provide superior value that caused us to develop our STAGE/GATE series of product development phases and decision points – or stages and gates.

This is how it works:

In a nutshell, it is

• Sharp, early product definitions
• Market research/assessment
• Voice of customer
• Technical feasibility studies
• Installation verification
• Uncompromising evaluations at every point along the way
• Built-in quality control checks, including reviews at 3 and 9 months after launch.

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