Small Manufacturers, Big Parts, More Volume

Exhibitor Profile: Zeon Chemicals and Telene

A windmill assembly made for use in residential applications will be on display at Telene’s booth in Las Vegas. The resin supplier’s products are used in the manufacture of these compact wind turbines, as well as products in the automotive and construction markets. “We feel it’s a very interesting example of the capability that Telene has. It’s a market that has been dominated by FRP and SMC—rigid composites,” says Brian Stubbs, Telene market development manager. “There’s also a RIM-molding material that’s suited to this market and this product, and also has economies that are very attractive to the manufacturers.”

Specifically, reaction injection molding (RIM) allows manufacturers to produce more parts in a shorter time frame. “A complete set of three blades is produced from a single family mold. So there’s a three cavity mold,” says Stubbs. “Cycle time to finish three finished blades is on the order of five to six minutes, as opposed to—depending on the approach—five to six hours.”

For large and small manufacturers, RIM processing offers the opportunity to produce large parts at niche-level volumes. “We don’t pigeonhole or discriminate between the large and the small guys,” says Stubbs. “What’ we’ve seen in Europe is that the technical service we provide has helped some of the smaller guys become big players. They might be doing open mold layup. So RIM is the next logical step for them.”

Telene’s technical support ranges from preliminary design meetings with molders and end users, manufacturing feasibility advice and FEA, and prototype production. “The material we produce and distribute is really an engineered solution to our customers’ requirements,” says Stubbs. “We view it as a three-way relationship between our molder customer and our OEM customers.”

Zeon Chemicals and Telene will exhibit in Booth #1027

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 1:09 pm and is filed under Exhibitor Profiles, Materials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.