Business View Caribbean - July 2015 55
Micro Milling gets its raw sand from quarries on the
island and its cement from Trinidad Cement Ltd. Then
it does all the processing. It does not sell any of its
products direct to consumers, but rather relies on
hardware or tile stores for their distribution. They, in
turn, act as the company’s sales force.
De Verteuil explains how the company’s commitment
to servicing the users of its products plays out in its
day-to-day operations: “We have a good relationship
with the tilers as well. Trinidad is not a very large place.
We know some of the main tile contractors in the mar-
ket. We keep our ears to the ground and make sure
they are happy with our product. If they’re not happy,
say, with the way something is drying, if it’s drying too
fast, or too slow, if it’s not sticky enough, if they don’t
like the packaging – we listen to those guys who actu-
ally use the product. I think that’s very important.”
De Verteuil further clarifies what sets Micro Milling
apart from the competition: “We focus so much on
quality. We spent quite a bit of time, effort and mon-
ey setting up our own internal lab a couple of years
ago. It has all the latest equipment capable of doing
all the tests related to all the standards that our prod-
ucts meet. Usually, what companies do, is they send
their products to the [United] States – there’s a place
called the Tile Council and they test for ANSI (American
National Standards Institute) standards. This process
could take up to three months before results are re-
ceived . . . but we do all our own testing. We do send it
to the States to be verified that our tests are correct,
but that is a large part of ensuring quality for us.”
In its ongoing quest for that high level of quality, Mi-
cro Milling hosted a training workshop, last year, at the
Royal Hotel in San Fernando, Trinidad, conducted by
the National Tile Contractors Association, Inc. (NTCA),
