Fresh Paint
Akzo Nobel expands in North America
strates Akzo Nobel’s commitment to
aggressively grow its North American
automotive plastic coatings business,”
said Conrad Keijzer, general manager,
automotive plastic coatings.
Akzo Nobel has strengthened its commitment to the North American automotive
plastic coatings market with a state-of-the-art production expansion in Pontiac,
MI. A ground breaking ceremony was held on May 22. The expansion will be further
supported by the addition of a centralized quality control (QC) laboratory to better
integrate the production and QC processes to increase throughput.
In this demanding period where much
of the automotive industry is cutting
costs and reducing resources, Akzo
Nobel Automotive Plastics Coatings
has made the decision to break ground
on an 11,000 square feet of production
expansion project in Pontiac, MI that
will incorporate state-of-the art plastic
coatings equipment and processes.
This expansion will include elements to improve overall operational
efficiencies and throughput. An automotive coatings Automatic Dosing
Unit (ADU) blending site will reduce
batch making times, while at the same
time improve the consistency and
quality of the products. A new waterborne production footprint will support
the growing interior waterborne coatings segment and position the production capabilities to support future
waterborne exterior topcoat activities.
“This progressive investment demon-
CHEMARK’S NEW STUDY
In response to the growing interest in
nanotechnology, The Chemark Consulting Group of Southern Pines, NC,
has published its new first edition
multi-client study, “Nanotechnology’s
Role in the Global Coatings Industry.”
According to Chemark, while the
interest in nanotechnology is growing
rapidly, the hype surrounding this
technology is growing even faster.
Because of the enthusiasm and emotional “push” emanating from the
technology’s underlying potential,
spurned on by speculation, technical
(and non-technical) opinions and most
of all, the plethora of patent filings
being sought, Chemark highlights the
importance of being extremely careful
in determining what resources will be
required to position with nano-based
technologies for the coatings applications in various markets.
Chemark’s stresses the importance of
not getting caught up in the emotional
“push,” and conversely, determine where
the market “pull” will be derived to support development and marketing efforts.
A few of the strategic questions
Chemark addresses in its study include:
What is a true nano as opposed to near-nano and non-nano technologies?
Within the paint and coatings industries, where do these technologies fit?
When will nano-based coating technol-gies be commercially viable? What features will differentiate nano-based coatings from commonly available systems?
What will be the economic value proposition by market segment that will
cause nano-based coatings to capture
