in the resin market.“Demands that customers are making on the
resin suppliers include: higher performance, environmentally
friendly and cost-effective products,” she said. “Environmental
regulations and company sustainability goals are driving the
trends that the market expects to see.”
Thomas Hall III, market segment manager, industrial mainte-
nance, transportation and industrial coatings & plastics, disper-
sions & pigments division, North America, BASF Corporation
said that the demands of customers continue to be aligned with
the major trends in the market. “The major trends in the market
continue to be: increase the life of coatings systems and reduce
the labor cost associated with the preparation and application
of coating systems,” Hall said. “Also to focus on minimizing the
impact on the environment by reducing VOC content and im-
proving the performance of WB technologies.”
Sayed-Sweet explained that increased performance continues
to be a demand. “Increased performance is always a customer
demand however with the soft architectural and industrial mar-
ket we are under price pressure from regional and global cus-
tomers,” Sayed-Sweet said.
Customers continue to rely more heavily on their polymer
supplier for technical support, higher performing products and
personal attention.
“Specialty Polymers’ customers, and potential customers,
are looking for products that give them an edge in the market,”
Reiser said. “To gain that edge, we are seeing an increased need
for higher performing products, customized for their application. They also look for increased technical support throughout
the evaluation process, to help maximize the product’s effectiveness in their specific application.
Lower cost and lower volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
are constant requests from customers, but customers insist that
these demands not have a negative effect on performance.
“Performance is always the primary driver,” Smith said. “At
Georgia-Pacific Chemicals, we work closely with our customers to
understand their performance objectives so that our formulation
solutions are balanced appropriately. This collaborative relationship
means that we can develop resins, including products with optimized
solid levels, in the context of the customer’s total formulation to ad-
dress cost and performance characteristics of the customer’s end
products. Of course, new performance requirements arise. For ex-
ample, we have a new coatings resin developed to tackle the need for
chemical resistance in high temperature applications.”
“For specialty epoxy systems, customers seek improved ele-
vated-temperature performance, flexibility, toughness, solvent-re-
sistance, adhesion, longer recoat time, blush resistance and lower
VOCs,”said Zarnitz. “Some customers are also seeking environ-
mentally friendly options beyond just lower VOCs, such as BPA
replacements and materials based on renewable resources. “
For Celanese, balancing performance and cost is a uni-
versal requirement. “Achieving that balance though depends
on the specific product the customer is selling,” Moncla said.
“For highly price sensitive applications, customers are asking
for some specific improvements in performance while keeping
cost increases minimal. For more specialized applications where
paint performance can provide higher margins to the customer
or greater market share, the balance tips toward performance
driving with cost being less critical.”
Dow manages to balance customer demands and the rising
costs associated with manufacturing resins by striving to of-
fer performance and cost benefits to customers. “Dow strives
to offer performance and cost benefits to our customers with
multifunctional products that enhance formulations, such as
EVOQUE Pre-Composite Polymer Technology,” Insogna said.
“In a typical paint formulation, titanium dioxide is not uni-
formly distributed, decreasing hiding efficiency. Instead of add-
ing more TiO2 to compensate for low hiding efficiency, paint
formulators can maintain hiding performance while using up to
20 percent less TiO2.”
Arkema focused on providing the resins that create the most
customer performance value and consolidating choices when
there are opportunities to do so. “In many cases, customers have
found ways to formulate with fewer raw materials, thereby sim-
plifying their product mix and inventory costs,” Hiel said.
Reichhold strives to provide products that meet customer de-
mands, but it is challenging to provide high performance, environ-
mentally friendly and cost-effective products all at the same time.
“Reichhold partners with our suppliers to jointly find new and
inventive ways to meet these demands while at the same time
maintaining an affordable resin,” Huell said. “BECKOSOL AQ
is our system of choice to meet all three of these demands.”
“One of Alberdingk Boleys company initiatives is constant
evaluation and continuous improvement of our performance at
all levels whether it is in manufacturing of dispersions, customer
service or technology innovation,” Sayed-Sweet said. “Also, we are
always looking for the best sourcing of raw materials globally.”
BASF keeps an open dialogue to ensure that customer’s needs
are being met. “BASF spends a lot of time listening to our cus-
tomers to understand the market demands for their respective
business,” Hall said. “Through this dialogue, BASF is able to
develop products that meet or exceed the expected performance
requirements with an attractive value proposition.”
As customers’ demands increase, Specialty Polymers found
that the closer they worked with customers the better they were
able to support their product development process.
“To respond to our customer’s need for increasing techni-
cal support we’ve expanded our lab, added equipment, and
increased both our technical and sales staff,” Reiser explained.
“This enables Specialty Polymers to work closer than ever with
customers, ensuring we clearly understand their application and
performance requirements. We’ve seen an increase in customer
requests for special products, packaging, labeling, and short
lead times. To provide the flexibility and responsiveness needed
to meet these customer demands, Specialty Polymers has made
significant investments in our production plants and staffing.”
Celanese focuses on managing customer demands versus
cost through proper contracting of key raw materials as well
as backwards integration into main monomers. “These programs
help insulate Celanese from some of the volatility present in many of
the building block commodities, “ Moncla said.
