When worldwide manufacturing was hit hard during the 2009 recession, chemical conglomerate BASF's sales dropped 18.6 percent to about $68 billion, but local officials say the company is far from down and out.
"These guys are pretty modest, but they're the best in the world at what they do," said Kelvin Stamper, a BASF employee from Dalton, Ga.
Robert Gagliano, BASF's site manager for both its plants in Chattanooga, said the company's local facilities are running day and night at full capacity to keep up with demand.
"We're booming," he said. "The products we make in Chattanooga are used by a wide range of customers and a variety of industries that aren't as severely impacted by the economy."
The 105,000-employee Ludwigshafen, Germany-based manufacturer employs about 120 area residents at two Chattanooga locations. The plants make latex adhesives and sealants that are used in products such as carpet, soda cans, asphalt, baseball cards and automobile parts.
Mr. Gagliano said his local team has stayed leaner than the competition through cross-training and maintaining their plant locations, which date back to 1971 at Amnicola Highway and 1964 at Polymer Drive.
"We sweat the assets -- like rebuilding an old car," he said. "We used to have to work on equipment daily, and through lean manufacturing practices we can now keep equipment running for years."
He's proud of how the team's "green" efforts have worked in concert with plans to improve efficiency and profitability.
"Last year we calculated a 65 percent reduction in air emissions since 2001," he said, noting that the Chattanooga plants were simultaneously doing more with less. "We have a formal process for benchmarking our operations, and our facility was No. 2 in the NAFTA region, and No. 6 worldwide."
Employee experience is one of the team's intangible assets, Mr. Gagliano said.
Doug Roselle, a BASF senior process engineer, has 26 years of experience, close to the plant average of 20 years. The company's efforts to keep fixed costs low mean that as employees leave or retire, they are not replaced and their duties are divided up among remaining employees, Mr. Roselle said.
"We have one guy per area; operators are more for troubleshooting now," he said. "Eighty percent is using your brain and not your back anymore."
Despite its large size and financial success, the company keeps a relatively low profile. Bring up BASF in casual conversation and you may draw a blank look. But the international conglomerate has a hand in creating most manufactured objects in the modern world, according Bert Templeton, business manager for the company's latex carpet business.
"We make the basic raw materials that get used to make everything else," he said at the company's Amnicola Highway location. "We don't make the products you buy, we make the products you buy better," he added, echoing the company's ad campaigns.