H.B. Fuller announced today that it has opened its new “Automotive Competency Center” in Mannheim, Germany. This facility, which includes an applications laboratory and expanded sales, customer and technical service office space, represents the company’s commitment to invest in its capabilities in the automotive industry.
The Automotive Competency Center expands H.B. Fuller’s capability to develop and manufacture hot melt, water based, solvent based, reactive and film adhesive technologies for various automotive trim, structural, lighting, electronics, and electric vehicle and battery applications. New application machinery, testing equipment, laboratory capabilities and space facilitates expanded customer engagement in innovation from concept to prototyping to final design.
“This outstanding facility exemplifies our strong commitment to customers in the automotive and automotive electronics industries,” says Matt McGreevy, business director, H.B. Fuller Global Automotive. “The Automotive Competency Center will provide enhanced collaboration capabilities due, in part, to its close proximity to European automotive customers. It also expands our engineering adhesives R&D and technical capabilities, and it strengthens our ability to develop new adhesive technologies and applications to support innovation in the broader transportation sector.”
From this facility, adhesive experts with decades of experience and deep, diverse knowledge of the automotive industry will work closely with OEM and Tier 1 customers to meet their design and production challenges.
Howard Biery, business manager, H.B. Fuller Automotive, EIMEA, comments, “The new facility dramatically enhances our ability – not only regionally, but globally – to support diverse customer applications, and to find the optimal materials and methods to meet performance and production requirements. Driven by trends, such as lightweighting, performance and cost, manufacturers in this fast-changing market need their suppliers to provide rapid innovation and complete, sustainable assembly solutions. The Center enables us to be an even stronger partner.”
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