19/06/2014
On 15th May 2014 Sika Limited welcomed new and existing customers to our UK headquarters and training facilities at Welwyn Garden City to take part in the 2014 UK Transportation Seminar. The seminar was a corporate and UK combined event, to promote our expertise and solutions in bus, commercial vehicle, rail and specialist vehicle markets.
The assembled delegates travelled from around the UK, Ireland and Europe and were invited to participate in a series of presentations and Q&A discussions, followed by corresponding practical demonstrations in the Sika Laboratory and Systems Engineering facilities, to visually reinforce the key points made in the presentations.
Adding a further level of technical insight, a team of Global Market Field Managers from Sika AG came over to assist with the presentations and workshop demonstrations. This sought to address many of the technical and productivity problems faced by designers and builders of modern transportation systems such as cars, buses, trucks, trains and caravans/motorhomes etc.
A number of sealing, bonding and adhesive solutions, including one and two-component products, hybrids, accelerators and booster systems were thoroughly discussed, and while most of the delegates were already existing users of Sika products, they remained receptive and open minded about how Sika’s emerging technologies could improve manufacturing quality and productivity even further.
"I came here looking for sealants with fast curing times, which is an essential requirement to ensure the production line can continue without costly delays. All in all, this has been a very good series of demonstrations and I take back with me far more knowledge about Sika than I had before I came." Darren Ostle, Manufacturing Engineer, responsible for JCB Cab Systems
With a maximum production output of 3,000 vehicles per year, Benimar is Spain’s premier builder of motorhomes. Pleased with what he had seen and learnt, Maurits Geensen, Benimar’s Quality Manager said: “We are already using Sika in a number of different areas, but I came over wanting to learn more about improving productivity and have been impressed in particular with the demonstration of Sika’s Hot Melt solutions for floor lamination.”
The seminar was clearly a very successful two days, delegates were given the opportunity to observe some of Sika’s new technologies which are close to release. These technologies include a new patented high tack boosted adhesive system which will offer major benefits in productivity. A new range of low density sealants and adhesives were also presented, offering the potential to dramatically reduce the weight of a vehicle, the benefits to the customer would be increased payload and improved fuel efficiency.
It was Sika’s intention at the seminar to demonstrate our commitment to the research and development of new technologies that will show benefits in production cycles and show significant cost savings. This was clearly achieved with the new technologies that were presented.