A wide range of materials and processes are used by bus and coach manufacturers in vehicle body building. Resistance to impact, extreme temperature conditions and round-the-clock operation make extreme demands on all areas of vehicle making. Adhesives and sealants are amongst the many products that the bus and coach manufacturers rely on for durability, flexibility and reducing the number of spot welding points.
Headway Chemicals India Pvt. Ltd., established as an Indo-British venture, aims to provide solutions to clients by delivering high performance, totally reliable materials and technical services. Located in Pune, the company is making ‘headway’ in providing systems and materials that are technically and chemically best suited to meet the customer needs.
“We are targeting majority of medium to large-size coach makers who look for quality products. As of today, we are selling products made by an Italian company, New Polyurethane Technologies (NPT), that react their own polymers and are world class manufacturers of polyurethane and modified polymer sealants, right from the scratch. Their products can be used across automotive items, including trucks and buses. Reacting their own polymer gives them real control over the product performance. NPT’s strength lies in supplying private labels. It has a large markets all over the world, but people aren’t much familiar with the brand NPT. In India, NPT is quite happy that we are promoting their label,” said Mr. Ben Fishwick, Director, Headway Chemicals.
In the last three years of the company’s history stocking and selling products in the Indian bus and coach market has gained traction. “We have been clocking around 15,000 foils in some months. Our adhesives and sealants are used in applications as in the bus wind screen, side glasses, seam welding, etc., by companies like Deccan, Corona, Veera Vahana, SM Kannapa, Antony Coaches, etc. We are currently running trials with ACGL and are in talks with DICV and Ashok Leyland. In the next three years, we aim to achieve sale of 50,000 foils per month,” the Director added.
Asked if it makes a business sense to import and then sell rather than rely on the ‘Make in India’ campaign of the Government, Mr. Fishwick replied: “We want our clients to rely on our abilities and service that we are confident of. Our expertise is in technical selling of the product. My observation here is that at times products are not properly sold, with adequate product information to the customer. Our technical sales technique and experience in introducing materials through seminars and technical and installation training enable our customers to specify and use our materials with confidence. For that we must indulge in the financial risk of making the product available. In fact, this is our USP as we give a product after understanding the customer’s application.”
Perhaps it makes a good business sense to stock and sell since manufacturing at the current size and volume of the company would require a lot of investments. Mr. Fishwick averred: “It is also not easy to manufacture sealants in India, especially for the automotive sector, since the glazing sealants have to be crash-tested. In the absence of this facility in India, we saw the opportunity to stock and sell. Most of our competitors too seem to import.”
It goes without saying that the products imported undergo their own testing and validation. “Adhesion test is performed on products, and even ARAI approval has to be taken. We also have results from NPT that we provide to our clients. If they like it they order it for trial. Sealants are also certified with ISO standards. The key items are stocked. But if there is a demand for a new product, the leadtime could be 6-8 weeks.”
Headway Chemicals has two supreme brands in U-Seal range from NPT S.r.l. for the bus truck and rail industries in India. Amongst them are U-Seal 500 and U-Seal 208 BTR.
Mr. Fishwick explained: “The former is a powerful and versatile adhesive sealant for all general applications involving sealing & bonding for a wide variety of uses, whereas the latter is for direct glazing of windshield and front, side and rear glasses. It is also an excellent non-sag, one-component, flexible and high-performance polyurethane adhesive sealant for direct glazing of windshield and front, side and rear glasses. Completely solvent free it is also odourless and non-conductive.”
One of the new developments also is the SiMP-Hybrid polymer which can be formulated into products that are solvent, isocyanate, and tin free. “The range of polymers includes both ethoxy and methoxy types, with the ethoxy types eliminating the evolution of methanol during cure. NPT’s prepolymers can be formulated into sealants and adhesives that are non-yellowing with superior adhesion to both porous and non-porous substrates, offering real value compared with incumbent products from flexible, highly elastic to the more rigid, fast curing types,” concluded Mr. Fishwick.