National Engineer Week: Andrew Erchinger Driving Continuous Improvement and Operational Excellence at Kuraray America
Great engineering keeps things running: safely, efficiently, and consistently.
Kuraray’s EVAL™ ethylene vinyl alcohol (EVOH) copolymer supports critical applications around the world each day, and Andrew Erchinger is part of the team ensuring our Kuraray America, Inc. (KAI) EVAL production operations deliver the performance and uptime our customers count on every day.
This #EngineersWeek, as we celebrate the theme #TransformYourFuture, Andrew reflects on what continuous improvement looks like in action.
A Natural Fit
Today, Andrew serves as Assistant Production Manager for the KAI EVAL plant in Pasadena, TX.
He has been part of the KAI team for 12 years, starting as a project engineer and serving in several roles, each deepening his knowledge of both the process and the plant.
Optimizing Every Day
His day begins by reviewing process conditions and walking the plant floor, staying close to operations and his team. He meets with his engineers to evaluate manufacturing performance, align on adjustments, track KPIs, and advance improvement initiatives across the site. Our focus is being safe and more efficient, without compromising on product quality.
“Success is a team effort,” he says. “Everybody has their own areas of expertise and experience, and that’s what makes this work possible.”
Superior Performance & Applications People Depend On
It’s the exceptional performance of the product that motivates the manufacturing team. Multilayer structures with EVAL™ EVOH offer a safe, lightweight and transparent alternative to glass and metal. 1mm of EVAL™ EVOH has the same gas barrier as a 10-meter-thick wall of low-density polyethylene (LDPE). This means that a very thin layer of EVAL™ EVOH adds a superior barrier to efficient multilayer structures.
Kuraray’s EVAL™ EVOH resin has everyday applications, Packaging, Agriculture, Automotive, Industrial.
Building on What Came Before
Looking ahead, Andrew sees progress as something built step by step, and generation by generation.
The adoption of digital tools enables his team to capture knowledge in real time, making it easier to preserve, access, search and continuously transform how engineering evolves. At KAI, he’s seen that firsthand through continuous improvements to process conditions, where each campaign, each report, and each refined condition sheet becomes a better starting point than the last. It’s proof that most breakthroughs don’t happen in isolation; they’re built on what came before.
In the end, his hope is simple: to leave behind work that helps the next person go a little further, a little faster, because progress is always a shared effort.