When Alexander Parkes developed the first man-made plastic in the 1860s, he had no idea what an integral role the material would come to play in daily life.
When dealing with complex problems, it is best to take a step-by-step approach. This methodology can aid the investigation of quality issues commonly encountered with pressure-sensitive-adhesive (PSA) products.
The starting point for the creation of a lean corporation is the development of a corporate business process model that represents all corporate activities in a common format and facilitates the implementation of the lean philosophy. A bottom-up approach is used to create this model, such that groups and departments document their processes, and these processes are combined to form larger processes. The highest-level process corresponds to the corporation's business process.
Long a mainstay of conventional manufacturing and distribution, material-handling automation is now becoming increasingly helpful to adhesives and sealants companies, boosting productivity and the bottom line.
Technical professionals in the pressure-sensitive adhesives area are highly skilled and educated in tape-making processes. They have often taken course-work in the areas of PSA tape properties, characteristics of tape-making, web-handling, coating and converting processes. Subject-matter knowledge is generally abundant.
Sealants are generally chosen for their ability to fill gaps, resist relative movement of the substrates, and exclude or contain another material. Sealants are generally lower in strength than adhesives, but have better flexibility. Usually, a sealant must effectively bond to a substrate in order to perform these functions.
Photopolymer material chemistries were introduced in the 1960s as an alternative to solvent-based material chemistries. Their advantages were so readily apparent that they were quickly adopted for many industrial applications.
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