Armstrong’s Travelling Training Trailer [VIDEO]

Armstrong World Industries Inc., a leading designer and manufacturer of floors, ceilings and cabinets, has a unique and interesting vehicle that they use to educate customers about their products.  Recently the Armstrong Ceiling and Wall Systems Mobile Training Solutions Center stopped at Kirksey Architecture for a day of demonstrations and education.

The Armstrong Ceiling and Wall Systems Mobile Training Solutions Center is a customized trailer for a semi-trailer truck which has been converted into a travelling product showroom and classroom.  Armstrong representatives bring the trailer to the office parking lots of construction companies and offer training and demonstrations to employees of those companies.  Types of training include continuing education, product demonstration, hands-on installation training, and procurement guidance to make ordering, delivery and installation of Armstrong products as efficient as possible.

On the day the Armstrong trailer visited Kirksey, a few architects with projects currently underway stopped by and discovered solutions to some of their project requirements.  It is Armstrong’s goal to work with companies to meet each company’s design and architectural requirements.

In the following video, Armstrong Installation System Specialist Donald Burden gives a tour of the Training Center.  He starts with what he called the basic product board, which displays Armstrong’s basic product line including acoustical grid, wall moldings, transition clips, seismic systems, painted grid, perimeter trims, and drywall grids.  Then he talks about the different product display boards within the trailer which group product examples by category.  First he points out different drywall and grid types and setups.  These include different backings, domes, barrel vaults, groin vaults, and transitions.  Another display board contained more drywall and grid products with cross tees and mains, stucco plaster, transition clips, Armstrong’s utility angle called KAM, and examples of how these products could be used.  Other products displayed included wood products such as their WoodWorks Grille and similar linear metal products, Ultima Create ceiling tiles which can be printed with any image or logo, a wide variety of clouds and canopies, Soundsoak acoustical panels, their line of wood channel products and their similar looking MetalWorks Effects, and their extensive line of metal tiles and panels including MetalWorks Mesh and their perimeter trim line called Axiom. 

Burden also talks about the trailer’s electrified grid called DC FlexZone which allows quick and easy rearrangement of the overhead light fixtures in the trailer.  The trailer has its own audiovisual system operated by a Crestron on-board control system with which the projector can be operated, the volume of the built-in speakers adjusted, and the screen can be lowered or put away.  A computer drives what the projector displays.

Watch the video below to tour this fascinating mobile training center for yourself!