The conversations at the American Coatings Show 2026 made one thing clear: coatings manufacturers and applicators are under growing pressure to operate with more precision, visibility, and speed than ever before.
Not just in the lab. Not just on the production floor. Across the entire business.
From raw material volatility and regulatory compliance to labor visibility and operational performance, the industry is reaching a point where disconnected systems and manual processes are becoming harder to sustain.
Over the course of ACS 2026, the Crestwood Associates team spent time speaking with coatings manufacturers, finishers, distributors, and contractors about what they are seeing inside their operations today. The themes were remarkably consistent.
The industry is evolving quickly. Operational visibility is becoming a competitive advantage.
Sustainability Is Driving Operational Change
One of the strongest themes throughout ACS 2026 was sustainability. Sessions and conversations repeatedly focused on waterborne technologies, material innovation, and reducing chemical exposure throughout the manufacturing process.
During Crestwood Associates’ live interview from the show floor, Eva James shared:
“Sustainability seems to be the major theme in general for both the attendees and the sessions.”
But sustainability is also creating operational complexity behind the scenes. As compliance expectations increase, coatings companies are being asked to track more data, maintain more documentation, and prove greater accountability across production and supply chain operations.
For many organizations, that becomes difficult when critical information still lives across spreadsheets, paper processes, disconnected shop systems, or manual reporting workflows. The challenge is no longer just producing high-quality coatings products. It is being able to document, trace, validate, and report on operations efficiently and accurately.
Digitalization Is No Longer Optional
One of the biggest observations from the show floor was the growing interest in digitalization and AI across the coatings industry. What stood out most was not that companies had fully embraced AI already.
It was that nearly everyone was asking questions.
- How do we improve visibility?
- How do we connect the shop floor to the front office?
- How do we manage compliance more efficiently?
- How do we make faster operational decisions with better information?
Eva James described the current mindset across the industry this way:
“The increasing influence of the digitalization and AI… this industry seems to be knocking at the door and they’re interested, but they have not yet embraced the AI technology and the movement.”
According to discussions from the ACS live interview, many coatings organizations are still operating with highly manual systems that do not communicate effectively across departments.
As Eva explained:
“There’s still a lot of manual systems being used on the shop floor and not really interacting with the front office.”
That gap is becoming more difficult to manage as market conditions become more volatile.
The reality is that many coatings businesses are still making critical margin, production, and inventory decisions using stale or incomplete data. The ACS 2026 campaign messaging reinforced this challenge directly: many companies believe their systems are “good enough,” while operational decisions are actually being made without real-time visibility.
Volatility Is Increasing the Need for Real-Time Visibility
Another major topic throughout ACS 2026 was market volatility. Raw material fluctuations, increasing customer expectations, labor challenges, and growth in sectors like data centers and energy storage are putting pressure on coatings manufacturers to respond faster and operate more efficiently.
Speaking about what she heard throughout the event, Eva James noted:
“The market is evolving significantly. It’s very volatile right now for conditions on the raw materials for them.”
She also pointed to changing market demand across industries tied to infrastructure and technology growth:
“Data center construction and energy storage is really changing the focus of this industry.”
For many companies, the issue is not a lack of effort. It is a lack of connected operational visibility. When production, inventory, purchasing, quality management, scheduling, and financial reporting operate separately, small inefficiencies become expensive over time.
We continue to see coatings manufacturers struggling with:
- Re-costing jobs manually when material prices shift
- Limited visibility into true batch profitability
- Delayed reporting between the shop floor and finance
- Manual compliance documentation processes
- Inventory inaccuracies impacting production planning
- Difficulty identifying margin leakage until after the quarter closes
These are not isolated operational frustrations. They are visibility problems.
The Coatings Industry Is Becoming More Operationally Data-Driven
One of the most encouraging takeaways from ACS 2026 was seeing how many organizations are actively looking for better ways to modernize operations without overcomplicating their business. The conversation is shifting away from “Do we need better systems?” toward “How do we improve operational visibility without disrupting everything?” That distinction matters.
Many mid-market coatings manufacturers assume modern ERP and operational systems are designed only for large enterprise organizations. In reality, modern cloud ERP platforms are increasingly helping mid-sized manufacturers gain better visibility into production, inventory, costing, quality management, and compliance while reducing reliance on spreadsheets and disconnected processes.
Eva James summarized that shift clearly during the interview:
“That curiosity in technology that I’ll say was maybe not at the forefront before, now that’s their competitive advantage and they’re seeing that and really starting to embrace it.”
The companies gaining traction are not necessarily the ones implementing the most technology. They are the ones creating operational clarity.
What Crestwood Associates Took Away from ACS 2026
ACS 2026 reinforced something our team sees consistently when working with coatings manufacturers and specialty contractors:
- Most operational problems do not start as technology problems.
- They start as visibility gaps.
- Disconnected data.
- Manual workarounds.
- Delayed reporting.
- Reactive decision-making.
The coatings companies that continue to scale successfully are building systems and processes that allow operations, production, inventory, compliance, and finance to work together in real time. That operational alignment becomes increasingly important as organizations grow, expand product lines, navigate compliance pressures, and manage tighter margins.
Our team left ACS 2026 excited about where the industry is heading and encouraged by how many organizations are beginning to prioritize operational visibility as part of their long-term strategy.
Continue the Conversation with Crestwood
If your coatings organization is struggling with disconnected systems, manual reporting, inventory visibility, compliance tracking, or operational inefficiencies, now is the right time to evaluate where visibility gaps may be impacting your business.
Crestwood Associates works with manufacturers, distributors, and specialty contractors to help improve operational visibility, streamline processes, and modernize business systems without unnecessary complexity.
Join one of our coatings industry webinar sessions to continue the conversation and explore operational strategies tailored specifically for coatings organizations.
- Formula to Floor: Operational Visibility for Coatings Manufacturers
- Solving Field Visibility Challenges for Coatings Contractors & Applicators
Or schedule a Business Optimization Assessment to identify where operational friction, reporting delays, and disconnected processes may be creating unnecessary cost and risk across your organization.
