Solutions Selling: Strong Teams, Strong Solutions

ORAFOL offers customised adhesive solutions based on acrylic dispersions within its Adhesive Tape Systems business. Sales and Research & Development work closely together, enabling fast development – no matter how specialised the application. To support this, ORAFOL also relies on the new coating line in Hall 10, which opens up new possibilities.

Joint-friendly, hoof-friendly, non-slip – this is how one manufacturer promotes its rubber mats for livestock transport vehicles. These mats are installed on loading ramps to prevent horses from slipping and getting injured during loading. A seemingly inconspicuous product – yet one with a very concrete application for ORAFOL’s Adhesive Tape Systems: How does the rubber mat adhere optimally to the steel surface of the ramp? “That was the starting point of our development task,” explains Dr Sandra Starke, R&D Scientist Adhesive Tape Systems, referring to one of her projects. “The challenge lay in the substrate: rubber. It often contains substances that migrate into the adhesive layer and impair its bond – our solution must be resistant to this, mechanically robust and durably adhesive.”

For such specialised requirements, ORAFOL develops acrylic dispersions tailored to diverse customer needs. These adhesive solutions are coated onto carrier materials at the Oranienburg site, converted, delivered, and laminated by the customer onto the substrate. “Here, we draw on decades of experience. No two adhesive solutions are alike.”

Dream job scientist: “Everything I develop makes it to market.”

Learn more about careers in polymer chemistry at ORAFOL

Succeeding Through Partnership

The more specialised the requirement, the more intensive the exchange. The Research & Development department is involved from the very beginning to provide technical consultation – this is not an exception but the principle. “We first draw on an internal catalogue of proven acrylic dispersions to get closer to the target product,” says Dr Starke. Each dispersion brings specific properties tailored to its application – whether for paper, outdoor use, aerospace or white goods.

“For example: we refine films that our customer laminates onto evaporator plates. These plates are installed in refrigerators; the dispersion offers excellent initial tack for this purpose. Because cooling pipes are mounted afterwards, the film must not adhere too strongly – so we equipped it with what we call ‘slip resistance’,” explains Dr Starke. Such combined, sometimes seemingly contradictory material properties stem from experience. ORAFOL uses its existing portfolio efficiently, combines suitable solutions and further develops them where required.

When experts develop technologies

Sales Manager Dieter Koch oversees the German-speaking market in Adhesive Tape Systems and knows how central this partnership-based approach is for ORAFOL. “Competition is strong. That is precisely why we do not focus on volume or price battles – but on technically superior solutions tailored to our customers’ needs.” Sales already brings a strong understanding of problems and potential solutions. “Eighty per cent of my work is technical. Our consulting expertise is clearly at the forefront; I don’t see myself as a traditional salesperson,” says Koch.

Proximity to customers is essential to him: “I’m at my customers’ sites almost every week, exchanging ideas in person and working together on new applications – this is our understanding of solutions selling.”

Customised – and Industrial

Even for highly specialised applications and small batch sizes, ORAFOL offers customers tailor-made solutions – produced with industrial-grade quality. “Every project runs on our new large-scale coating line in Hall 10. This ensures series capability and reproducibility from the very beginning,” says Dieter Koch. Samples are no longer tested in the laboratory first and then scaled up, but are produced directly on the new coating line. “This requires more effort on our side, but it delivers fast and realistic results. It gives our customers both technical and financial planning reliability,” Koch adds.

Faster. Wider. Engineered to fit.

From a development perspective, the new line also brings decisive improvements, explains Dr Sandra Starke: “We now coat at a width of two metres instead of the previous 1.60 metres, because many customers order the standard two-metre format. On the coating line, we can operate in what is known as duplex mode – and are therefore twice as fast as before.” To support this, ORAFOL has expanded its machinery with a converting unit that pre-cuts rolls of carrier material weighing several tonnes and two metres wide. Customer-specific widths and formats pose no problem – ORAFOL delivers fully customised.

The new coating line also offers clear advantages in the application of acrylic dispersions themselves, says Dr Starke: “We rely on innovative drying technology, which allows us to coat at much higher speeds. At the same time, we apply thinner layers – saving raw materials.”

Customer-specific development, industrial quality and partnership at eye level – these are the strengths of Adhesive Tape Systems at ORAFOL. Dieter Koch summarises:
“We are agile, fast and decisive like a medium-sized company. At the same time, we have the technology, quality and financial backing of a global group.”