Bonding proves illuminating for Amscreen

With only 7 days left to deliver an order to London the following week, and its production line at a standstill because of an assembly-related challenge, Amscreen’s Production Director Alan Wheeler was very pleased to receive a call followed by an immediate, same-day visit from Graham Crozier of Advanced Adhesives. The bonding experts had been recommended to Amscreen by a plastics moulder that already worked with them.  The urgency of the challenge was not lost on Crozier, hence the meeting at the Amscreen factory that afternoon. Here, he took a briefing from their design and manufacturing team, and departed for the Advanced Adhesives Applications Centre armed with the components which needed to be bonded.  “When can we have the production line up and running?” asked Alan Wheeler as the parts disappeared off site. “Tomorrow afternoon “ came the reply.  

Using the laboratory and testing facilities at the Advanced Adhesives Applications Centre, Crozier was able to trial various potential solutions, find the optimum answer, subject the bonded component to a variety of tests overnight and be back at the Amscreen factory by lunchtime the following day for production-line trials.  It proved to be a solid solution to the bonding issue which Amscreen had experienced and as a result, production was able to restart immediately. 

The structural adhesive selected for the application, Advanced Adhesives 8062, offers a strength of 18-25MPa with an inbuilt flexibility of >100%, and it performed well in excess of the required specification to the point where in testing, the parent material failed before the adhesive did. Equally importantly, the chosen adhesive also offered excellent differential thermal expansion performance which an added bonus for the application, where significant temperature changes would be likely to occur daily. The adhesive bonds both the roof and the screen of the booth.

As a result of this problem-solving partnership, Advanced Adhesives, working with Amscreen’s Procurement & Projects Manager Graham Parker, has now become the sole adhesives supplier to Amscreen 

“Graham Crozier and Advanced Adhesives are now an integral part of our design and production teams – as a business we need to make sure that we have the best advice available, be that within or outside our organisation. We have new projects, processes and products on a week by week basis and Graham is consulted at every stage, and is on hand to offer advice and guidance.  That same ethos now applies to all other aspects of the supply chain. It’s certainly worked for the business as a whole. When I arrived the main key performance indicator of percentage of the screens working stood at 95% - and now it stands at 99.1% - and I’m sure that the improvement has come in no small part to the closer relationships with suppliers.  

The future is said to be bright for both businesses. “We invested in this business believing that the market had huge growth potential” says Alan Wheeler at Amscreen “And so it has proved to be. New business opportunities are opening up week by week.”

For Advanced Adhesives, working with growing businesses has been part of the company plan since it was established in 1998. “Across the industry sectors and across the regions our growth figures have been satisfying” says Graham Crozier. “With our ambitious growth figures comes hard work and a commitment to win new customers and new business. We want to replicate the Amscreen business experience and continue to build in strong partnership with all our customers”. In conclusion, Amscreen’s Alan Wheeler told the team at Advanced Adhesives “ I want to thank you for the work you did to get our production up and running yesterday. Amazing. Your company should be congratulated and thanked by Amscreen, so thanks to you Graham”.