Making changes for the better

CiMFeb20Features - toray1
CiMFeb20Features - toray1

Mike Richardson hears the views of John Darlington, Toray Advanced Composites’ (TAC) sales and marketing director, EMEA who discusses his recently appointed role within the company and the wind of change blowing through the industry.

 

There has been a lot of change at the company formerly known as TenCate Advanced Composites since it changed from the bright orange of the Netherlands’ royal family to the more sedate royal blue of Toray back in 2018. There has also been a change at the top too, when John Darlington was unveiled as Toray Advanced Composites’ new sales and marketing director, EMEA last July.

As an introduction, I begin by asking how the TenCate/Toray relationship is bedding-in. Has it been a seamless transition, and what have been the benefits of this union for the customer so far?

“The benefit of our integration for the customer is tremendous,” states Darlington. “As TenCate, we had built a very strong technical market position and we were seen as the premier ‘independent’ prepreg capability. This is to say that we didn’t have a vertical position for carbon fibre. The marriage of fibre availability, global manufacturing capability and proactive technical excellence now enables Toray Advanced Composites to offer a fully-integrated approach. The integration into the Toray group will take some time.

“My sales and marketing director role are a fantastic opportunity to promote an ‘outside-in’ approach to our customer engagement, thinking more from the perspective of our customers and what they need. In recent years we have already developed better tools (both analogue and digital) to understand the questions being asked by our customers.”

TAC has launched TC346, a high temp epoxy component prepreg which has been widely adopted by the F1 community

I ask what aspects of the company’s latest prepreg resin system products is he most excited by in terms of mechanical properties and finding niches in F1, motorsport, Electric Vehicles, etc.?

“I’m very excited about our recent developments. For the motorsport market, we recently launched TC346, a high temperature epoxy component prepreg which offers incredible toughness and has been widely adopted by the F1 community to improve car safety. This is at a time when teams are hesitant in making changes due to the wholesale regulation change in 2021, so it speaks volumes for the performance. Additionally, we see that the aircraft interiors market has stagnated greatly over the last decade. Our introduction of hybrid laminate techniques - bringing the best of thermoplastic and thermoset technologies together to improve mechanical and FST performance within the aircraft cabin - is looking pretty novel and innovative.”

Wants and needs

In terms of satisfying the latest customer demands, Darlington believes that his company’s customers ‘want’ a multitude of improvements and the real challenge is to understand their ‘needs’.

“Often there is a trade-off between material characteristics. What we really pride ourselves in is our Expert Services technical support team and end-customer support. Working with customers to maximise the potential of their operation and performance will incorporate all the factors mentioned.

“The composite market is a global industry. Many of our customers have very complex supply chains with design, specification, purchasing and manufacturing all happening in different regions. This is quite true for aerospace, space and launch and the emerging market of urban air mobility. These markets all have a real need for manufacturing excellence and quality and we are committed to supporting their success.”

Addressing the key factors affecting market dynamics, Darlington reckons that within the UK market, you can’t ‘not’ mention Brexit and the impact it has brought some end customers across the European Union to have hesitation about committing to supply from our island shores.

“This is true also for our customers. I hope this situation is now resolving itself for the good of the economy and we can all move forward. More generally, the climate change crisis is a real concern for everyone and the efforts by TAC to investigate energy consumption, recycling and lifecycle cost are all activities that we promote within our customer discussions.”

John Darlington, TAC’s sales and marketing director, EMEA

Changing tack, I’m interested to know more about the emerging trends in this market, i.e. Industry 4.0, additive manufacturing, the demand for more electric vehicles, urban air mobility, etc. and the reasons behind them? Equally, what are some of the competing products in this market and how big a threat do they pose for loss of market share by product substitution?

“Design and manufacturing are disciplines that are embracing innovative emerging technologies for sure. Reducing the time and effort placed on physical testing will become more broadly adopted in the coming decade, but certainly isn’t mature enough to replace large-scale testing today. With new product applications for composites and new industries being formed, the need to do more with less - or at least an existing labour force - will accelerate the use of ‘digital twin’ design.

“New product competition is continually being delivered to the market, and we must accept that as a positive sign of growing market demand. The customer intimacy and cooperation delivered by TAC cannot be simply be replaced. I welcome competition as an affirmation of the excellent products that we have developed over the last 40 years.”

Maximising market potential

According to Darlington, there is real market potential in all markets from automotive to aerospace, with Toray Advanced Composites already holding strong positions for high tech, high spec’ technically advanced composite materials.

“It is essential, however, that industries invest in market development and industrialisation. Toray invests heavily in opensource activities at the NCC and AMRC to support this, as industry understanding and cooperation is essential for the proliferation and adoption of composites across existing and emerging markets. We’re also investing in research for real-world solutions to recycling thermoplastic composites in our own R&D efforts, and also through our partnership associations.

Whilst on-time, in-full delivery of products and services is the output of a customer relationship, Darlington concludes by saying that Toray’s efforts start a whole lot earlier.

“Treating customers as partners and not consumers is key to the unique approach of Toray Advanced Composites delivering a collaborative development model, tailored to customer capability and capacity. A company is only as good as its people, and investment in talent is paramount to success. This can be viewed as a technical push, a commercial play, but also a personal relationship. We pride ourselves on the fact that we have trust with our customers to deliver a service.

“We’ve regularly received feedback from our customers and partners that we truly take the time to understand their business, their problem statement and what they’re hoping to achieve. Our technical support across both thermoplastic and thermoset technologies is second to none.”

www.toraytac.com

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