We had a customer struggling to get a urethane bead to adhere to glass.
They couldn’t get their sunroofs to properly adhere to the vehicles, and the OEM wasn’t certifying their line to run. Without certification they were at a stand-still and getting frustrated.
Fortunately, they called us.
Vendor and Tier partnerships help solve problems.
Without them issues like this one may go unresolved. At the very least increase the time it will take to find a solution, and we all know time is money.
That said, our Sales Engineering Manager stepped in and consulted with our partners to research the problem. One week later they had a new production line up and running with trained and certified workers.
So how did we do it? It’s all about the process.
#1 Identify the problem
As it turns out, the problem was the glass. Other glass suppliers had confirmed the urethane bead adhered fine to their glass, so it was time to test something… Through surface tension testing methods, we found the surface of the glass from their supplier was contaminated. This contamination was a result of their mold release process.
#2 work towards a solution
We worked with our customer’s glass supplier to demonstrate the cleaning methods used were ineffective in promoting adhesion and assisted in changing their process. Meanwhile, we helped train our customer’s staff on quick knife adhesion of urethane bead and cross hatch tape-to-primer testing.
#3 implement the solution
With the glass contamination issue resolved and the staff trained, our customer was able to get their production line OEM certified and has seen no further issues with adhesion.
Sometimes an extra set of eyes goes a long way in solving a problem. Add in some expertise from Rudolph Bros. and our partners, and you have a recipe for success!
