Industry Flocks to 17th Annual SPE Automotive TPO Conference

Americhem enjoyed a key role in this year’s SPE TPO Automotive Conference, held annually in Detroit. Our speaker, color expert Rick Mathew, helped kick off the conference on Sunday, Oct. 4, with an opening address/workshop on colors for TPO. Rick touched on numerical versus visual color tolerancing and creating color harmony between automotive TPO materials and other polymers, including polypropylene. This session was very well attended, with an estimated 50 conference participants in attendance. This is particularly noteworthy since the address occurred on Sunday evening, the evening before most of the conference activities were to commence. 

We got a lot of good feedback on the presentation, and a number of people stopped to tell me how entertaining and engaging Rick was. They also mentioned how his address made them think differently about color representation. The SPE board also appreciated our contributions and would like us to contribute similar content to next year’s conference.

As far as the conference itself, the attendance was the best I’ve seen in my years of participation. In particular, Monday’s programming was attended by a large throng, the best one day attendance I’ve seen at the conference. The receptions and other networking opportunities were outstanding and extremely well attended.

There was good representation from OEMs and others within the automotive supply chain, such as resin and additive companies. The exhibition portion of the programming seems to add more exhibitors each year. Our technical team was extremely pleased with the subject matter and the papers that were delivered. Each year, we see a lot of familiar faces, and the conference really has become the automotive plastics industry event where everybody is together in one place at one time. 

Industry personnel were optimistic about the growth of TPO materials in automotive applications and they were enthusiastic about the industry in general. The global diversity of the conference attendees continues to grow and evolve each year. Next year, the conference will potentially go overseas for the first time with the 2016 Shanghai TPO Conference, to be held March 22-24 in Shanghai, China. Look for Americhem to participate.

We continue to find that this growing event is an excellent platform for innovations and insight from Americhem. If you were at the conference, we’d love to hear your feedback, so leave us a comment to continue the conversation.

Brett Conway
Group Director – Plastics, Americhem Inc.

Exceed Your Scratch Resistance Specifications

Nobody wants to walk up to their car and discover a new scratch. Your car’s aesthetic appeal is important, and having to sit down in the driver seat just to see various nicks and marks in the dashboard each morning is a surefire way to kick start a bad day.

Occasional scratches don’t have to always be a reality, however. Americhem provides custom color masterbatches with scratch and mar prevention additives in order to keep you products safe from harm.

The Masterbatch Scratch Solution

At Americhem, we have more than 70 years of experience creating innovative masterbatch solutions, and that includes developing scratch-resistant additives for your plastic products. We work with original equipment manufacturers to provide a custom solution to suit their needs. Even if a customer uses a resin that contains some scratch and mar protection, we can engineer a solution that will work seamlessly with it, providing the best protection available.

Americhem can put your products through rigorous testing in order to ensure excellence,

which includes a: 

• Five-finger scratch test
• Variable-force, variable-speed Erichsen scratch test

Scratch Prevention Additives Outside of the Automotive Industry

The automotive industry isn’t the only market that can take advantage of scratch and mar additives. Ultimately, you want your products to look good, and preventing scratches can keep the aesthetic appeal. We are also exploring other industries for scratch resistance, including composite decking so that your faux wood always looks good.

Preventing Scratches with Americhem.

When it comes to scratches, it’s all about prevention. Our masterbatch and additive solutions can help your products stay safe and looking good for a long time. 

Give us a call at 1-800-228-3476 or contact us online today to learn more about how Americhem’s custom color masterbatch technologies can keep your products safe.

In-Vehicle Color Harmony – Forming a Dynamic Equilibrium

In her blog, Kate Smith, chief color maven for the website Sensational Color says, “Harmony is nature’s way of saying that two or more things together make sense. Color harmony represents a satisfying balance or unity of colors.” She continues, “The human brain distinguishes the visual interest and the sense of order created by the harmony and forms a dynamic equilibrium.”

Ms. Smith is speaking of color harmony in general, but at Americhem, we have been promoting the very same concepts in a multitude of industries where color is of the utmost importance. There is no industry in which the concept is any more important than in the automotive and transportation industry.

Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), plastics and synthetic fiber processors have to strike a balance between the various elements of a car’s interior. They are faced with the very difficult challenge of harmonizing colors across many different resin types and applications within the vehicle. With so many variables to deal with, and with color being only one aspect of a vehicle’s overall performance, OEMs would like to rely on one supplier who can take the variation out of the interior components and let them focus on the other important features and capabilities of that vehicle.

At Americhem, we specialize in managing color harmony within a vehicle. With over 73 years’ experience in managing color, in industries from building and construction to synthetic turf, we’re sensitive to the fact that different materials and applications perform in very different ways when it comes to color. We are color harmony specialists because of our technical expertise in the disciplines of color science, performance and process technology, polymer and additive expertise. When it comes to making sure your dashboard console, floor liners and head rest look harmonious and have a satisfying balance with one another, Americhem is up to the challenge.

This concept applies across all geographies, as well. When Americhem creates color for vehicle components, the same technologies and standards are transferred to our plants in Europe and Asia, ensuring that colors appear the same no matter where in the world the car is manufactured, purchased and driven.

So when it comes to in-vehicle color harmony, consider Americhem a partner you can count on. With decades of experience in thousands of materials and applications, we’ll make you breathe easy about color harmony. The colors in your vehicles will be in balance and aesthetically pleasing to your customers in the showroom as well as on the road.

Bill Myers

Account Manager, Americhem Inc.   

Environmental Themes and Record Attendance Characterize SPE TPO Conference

This week’s 16^th annual Society of Plastics Engineers TPO Automotive Engineered Polyolefins Conference was bigger and better than ever.  More than 500 people attended the conference, most of them representing molders, tier suppliers and OEMs in the automotive industry. The event, held annually in Detroit, has grown steadily over the last few years and seems to be outgrowing the current venue.

In addition, attendees included 15 media members from the automotive and plastics press. The media attendees even included Chinese and Spanish language publications this year. The exhibitors were also at an all-time high, with 72 exhibiting companies, including Americhem, occupying much more floor space than in prior years.

There were over 60 technical presentations given and several of the topics revolved around an environmental theme. IAC and Ford gave one of the initial papers on bio-based materials, and that conference hall was dedicated to environmental topics for the balance of the conference’s first day. Another key theme was lightweighting of polyolefin parts, and this topic continues to be a big focus in this industry as OEMs struggle to meet Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. These topics were of specific interest to Americhem, as this week, our automotive manufacturing plant in Ohio is completing an ISO 14001 audit. This standard sets out the criteria for an Environmental Management System. More and more automotive suppliers are realizing the importance of this standard to their customers.

With the record attendance, the exhibitor hall was filled with Tier suppliers and OEM’s looking for suppliers who can help them solve complex problems and add value in the global automotive marketplace. For our part, Americhem’s booth was visited by most of our automotive customers. Our message revolved around Americhem’s color management capabilities. As a global supplier of automotive color masterbatch, Americhem helps OEM’s and Tier 1’s manage the variability of raw materials used in extrusion and injection molding technologies. With examples we can point to from our work with a large global OEM, we are able to demonstrate the color harmony that Americhem helps promote across different materials, plants, suppliers and geographies. The message is becoming more commonly understood and is gaining momentum within the industry.

It’s exciting to be part of the growing community that this conference represents. We certainly plan to keep our ear to the pulse of these SPE members and the tier suppliers and OEM customers they represent. We look forward to participating again in 2015.

Brian Kady
Market Manager, Americhem, Inc.