High Vitality, Agile & Fast Development Process
Penn Color has 20% of its resources globally in R&D and invests 6% of its revenues every year in R&D projects. As a result, every year, more than 50% of Penn Color’s revenue is generated by thermoplastic masterbatches and liquid dispersions that were commercialized within the previous 3 years. Penn Color’s R&D vitality applies to all of our developments, as we enable safe and sustainable customer products, outstanding in both aesthetics and performance. With the hundreds of customers who trust Penn Color every year with their projects, we follow an agile development process, supported by world-class capabilities and the expertise of outstanding people. In the development process, the development sprints play a critical role. The integrated approach of design, combined with ultra-fast iterations at the very early stages of the project, helps to dramatically reduce both risk and development time. At the same time, integrated design springs allow the customer and the Penn Color teams to have more design options to choose from, to produce different physical prototypes all guaranteed feasible, while ensuring manufacturing scalability at the global level.
Vitality index
Are custom
formulations
Unique Ability to Cross-Pollinate Thermoplastics & Liquid Dispersions
Penn Color is the only company that operates both in the thermoplastic masterbatch field (also known as the “dry” technologies) and in the liquid dispersion field (also known as the “wet” technologies). Beyond the opportunity to serve one of the widest portfolios of applications, Penn Color’s ability to use cross-pollination between the dry and wet sides is unique in the industry. Cross-pollination means that when Penn Color teams, from both the wet and the dry sides, work together, they get stimulated and challenged by each other’s specific way of approaching a project, as they consolidate knowledge, experience, and connectivity to players from seemingly unrelated fields. Cross-pollination is also a key driver of performance for complex products that use, for example, both an ink for décor and a masterbatch in a structural component. Often in such cases, the most critical factor of success is less about the optimization of the ink or the masterbatch separately, but more about the ability to take an integrated design approach of the two. The innovation process for some of Penn Color’s breakthrough products started with specific technologies used on the wet side, being applied on the dry side, and vice-versa.
“Dry” technologies and resin systems
“Wet” technologies
and resin systems
Analytical Capabilities Supporting Product Safety & Material Science
Penn Color customers want to know exactly what is in their product. They are also under high scrutiny to be in full control of the non-intentionally-added-substances (NIAS) that could be present in their product, as a by-product of reactions in the manufacturing process or at any point along the life-cycle of the product, including in the recycling streams and with the usage of recycled materials. To help ensure customers that their products are safe, Penn Color constantly upgrades our extensive analytical capabilities, conveniently available in-house for R&D projects, and offers these capabilities to customers as a service. Every year, Penn Color technicians perform 6,000 qualitative and quantitative tests, for nonvolatile, semi-volatile, and volatile components. They support material qualification for safety and regulatory compliance, forensic work, chemistry analysis in existing and new formulations, and validation of material property changes. Beyond the expertise in using state-of-the-art equipment, the analytical laboratory constantly develops new measurement methods to improve precision, accuracy, and reduce cost and time for analytical work.
Prototyping for the Widest Variety of Markets & Applications
A key factor of the success of the Penn Color development process with its customers resides in the ability to produce prototypes. Prototyping is when customers see their concepts come to life and play an essential role in integrated development sprints, to validate a design or to trigger another fast design iteration. Prototypes are also a critical communication tool with the key stakeholders of a project. We have extensive in-house prototyping capabilities, for most of the manufacturing processes the Penn Color products touch. This includes several packaging machines (Extrusion Blow Molding, Injection Stretch Blow Molding, Film), spray booths, and different curing equipment. In all cases, prototypes are meant to be as close as possible to customer applications, replicating critical-to-success factors such as thickness and curing time for coatings, or shapes in the case of packages.
Blow Molding
Blow Molding
Blow Molding
Blow Molding
In-House Testing
for Functional &
Material Performance
One aspect of prototyping is to validate the aesthetic part of a development. The other crucial aspect is the validation of functional performance. Penn Color has extensive in-house capabilities that allow us to conveniently integrate functional & material performance tests, as we go through fast iterations of development sprints. The barrier to light and gas, material structural resistance, surface properties, resistance to UV, and rheology are tested under conditions, following test protocols that have proven correlation with real-life conditions of use for the end products. This produces confidence that the Penn Color products will support the performance claims that our customers make about their products, including, in some cases, a performance warranty over several decades of utilization under the harshest conditions.
Material Testing - Thermoplastics
Resistance
Test
Test
Capillary
Rotational
Test
Stations
Test
Test
Resistance
Test
Test
Capillary
Rotational
Test
Stations
Test
Test
Material Testing - Inks & Coatings
Scratch Tester
Abrasion Tester
Sprayer
Size Analysis
Krock Meter
Scratch Tester
Abrasion Tester
Sprayer
Size Analysis
Krock Meter
We have the highest vitality index in the industry, creating thousands of new formulations every year. We either have a solution or we’ll create one for you. Please use SPARK, our solution finder to tell us what you are looking for.
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