Revel Nail Improves Operations and Adds Value with Lean Process Improvement

Revel Nail is currently located in Blackwood, New Jersey, and has over 190 employees. Founded in 2006, the manufacturer develops alternative nail products safer than acrylic polishes.

This company is the embodiment of the American dream. The founders began by bottling their product on their kitchen table and later grew to a small, run-down warehouse in Deptford, New Jersey. Both owners were working full-time jobs in addition to building the business. Phon Malone, CEO, even developed a novel product named Up2You, allowing people to create gel polish out of their favorite nail polish color. This product, in addition to its dip powder, accelerated the company’s growth. This allowed them to move into a bigger warehouse and sell to larger brands. All this growth took place over a few short years. 

Leadership is always looking to improve the brand and the Revel Nail line of products. This culture has helped them grow their business to become an international name. Continued growth at this rate does not come without growing pains. 

In 2019 the company began to explore lean to overcome a massive but welcomed challenge. "We literally had too many orders for us to process,” said Phon Malone. This New Jersey manufacturer faced a similar challenge many growing businesses experience. They were struggling to keep up with demand because of production delays. 

Revel Nail is focusing on international growth and their New Jersey facility must be able to keep up with demand. Growth and a massive influx of orders are always exciting, but they can cause production delays when lines aren't efficient. Revel Nail has been growing for seven years. The manufacturer outgrew five facilities in the first five years. Managers at Revel Nail were not familiar with the best way to solve their production bottlenecks, lean manufacturing.

Revel Nail turned to NJMEP, part of the MEP National Network™, for help. Twelve separate production organization initiatives, training, and educational activates were held throughout the year-long lean manufacturing project. Employees were introduced to lean as a concept and NJMEP worked with Revel Nail to “lean” their facility and implement best practices, and hands-on live simulation training was conducted. The training was constantly reinforced by leadership through tools and best practices provided by the lean facilitator. NJMEP’s account manager continued to engage with Revel Nail leadership to provide support and guidance throughout the journey. Revel Nail's leadership was active and engaged, ensuring the success of this progressive step forward in the business’ culture.