J’Adore Beyond the Floor

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Luxury Flooring Leader Adore Breaks Boundaries to Innovate in Energy and Electronics

A passion for creating beautiful and exquisitely functional flooring may have set the stage for the success of Adore Floors, but forward-thinking entries into the battery and connector markets are vaulting the firm into new realms of achievement.

“Adore was created to be a disruptor in the resilient flooring market,” said Matthew Lee, Adore’s DO. The New York-based firm, with deep roots in South Korea, emerged from a partnership between Adore CEO Kent Choi and Richard E. Albert, former president of legendary dance floor innovator Marley. That coupling is just the first instance of savvy kismet that continues to shape the Adore family of companies as an emerging global brand encompassing several types of manufacturing.

“The idea that product innovation could create and permeate a singularly uniform workforce was an unexpected result that helped to attract more like-minded professionals who recognized the opportunity of the products’ viability,” Lee explained. Today, Adore Floors is the world’s leading manufacturer of luxury vinyl tile (LVT), and a pioneer in resilient flooring technology.

Adore’s inclusion of post-consumer recycling content to their LVT products and the integration of sustainable manufacturing practices in their manufacture set them apart from the competition early on. The company’s certifications include the FloorScore® indoor air quality standard, ISO 9001:2008 certification, and ISO14001:2004 certification, which ensures the implementation of best practices in environmentally responsible manufacturing.

Firsts From the Ground Up

Creating new flooring technologies that enhance wear, stability, and cleanliness have propelled Adore into market leadership. Their CleanTech™ antimicrobial flooring treatment helps to keep indoor environments healthier and cleaner, making the flooring a favorite in shared commercial spaces, schools, and healthcare environments.

The firm is the first LVT supplier to infuse ceramic aggregate into both top coats and wear layers, which creates a thinner, more durable product with superior performance. “We were the first in LVT to manufacture an inline, automated production system that yielded high volumes,” Lee noted. “That put us in a position to be the capacity leader in LVT production for quite some time,” he added.

Adore engineers were the first to collaborate with floating floor I.P. holders to bring this technology to LVT, an approach typically used in laminate flooring that eliminates the need for adhesive. This combined with another Adore first—fully waterproof high polymer, high density commercial grade flooring—and resulted in another landmark in the development of LVT products.

Power, Connectivity, and the Future

Jumping from the flooring platform into the battery industry may seem like a far leap, but for Adore the move reflects their commitment to their core manufacturing competencies, and is propelling them into a booming market.

The Adore Battery division’s products are marketed under the Oracle brand. Known in South Korea for producing high-quality lead acid batteries, Oracle broke ground in the New York metropolitan area in 2013 and widened its presence to the Midwest out of Des Moines, Iowa in 2016, with the aim of expanding the brand and its APAC presence into the American battery market.

Oracle GM Steve Phelps shepherded Adore’s entry into the sealed lead battery sector, which is fueled by the unceasing popularity of the technology in the commercial emergency stand-by, personal mobility, and renewable energy industries.

Phelps is dedicated to refining the carbon-enhanced lead battery of the future. The addition of carbon strengthens the active material in lead acid batteries, increasing performance and battery life, while making charging faster and easier.

“The value proposition in the battery industry is service, quality, and price,” Phelps said. “We focus on providing the very best service by having warehouses close to the customer. We work with our factories to make sure they have quality processes in place that make us unique in the industry, and offer competitive pricing by keeping logistics costs down as best as we possibly can.”

The beauty of ease, simplicity, and advanced performance is evident in Adore’s flooring and battery divisions, as well as in their electrical connecting enterprise, AdoreTek.

Sam Hwang leads the AdoreTek division. “The market for connectors is at about $50 billion, and we have just begun to scratch the surface,” he said. “We see an enormous opportunity with our insulation displacement and multi-connection (IDMC) technology, which can be used in any industry, and by consumers.”

IDMC eliminates the need for snipping, twisting, and capping electrical wires, making wire connection safe, fast, and effortless. U-shaped copper alloy teeth are housed in high quality PVC casements; when the connectors clamp down onto the wire, they penetrate the casing and connect with the inner wire in multiple contact points. These multiple contact points and consumer-specific engineering reduce or eliminate electrical resistance to allow for higher current and voltage transmission.

Innovation, quality, a commitment to service, and a dedication to collaboration defines the ethos of the Adore family of companies. “It’s the strategic union of key personnel that results in these kinds of developments,” Lee stressed. “We wouldn’t be anywhere near where we are without the expertise of our people. It really all begins there.”