When was Advanced Adhesives founded?
Graham Crozier: Advanced Adhesives was formed 22 years ago, in the beginning we started with an ethos of being totally committed to supplying a quality product and excellent customer service, and our reputation has grown with us as our business has grown. As a business we are accredited to ISO 9001 and to ISO 14001, these accreditations have given us the credibility of manufacture and supply.
As such we have become a key supplier within the automotive industry – Bentley, Aston Martin, Rolls Royce all being valued customers. Whilst dealing with these notable corporations, we also supply all manner of businesses, right the way down to Fred in his shed, we do have a truly diverse product and customer range.
I’m an aircraft engineer by trade and that gives me a significant advantage, in that I can understand the customer’s challenges and frustrations and look at things from their point of view. Some of my customers call my specialist knowledge “yard wide and mile deep” which I think sums us up very concisely, we understand our products and applications and therefore deliver cost effective and robust solutions to a wide range of customers. Throughout our 22 years we’ve bonded everything from a rubber duck to a Bentley motor car.
What products do you supply to these customers?
We supply a range of industrial adhesives from anaerobic, cyanoacrylate, UV, epoxy, methyl methacrylate and hybrid polymers. One of the key areas in which we’ve been making great inroads over that last few years is the development of a low surface energy structural bonding adhesive, our PP3000. PP3000 is a two-part methacrylate structural bonder, a specific formulated chemistry for bonding low-surface energy materials like polypropylene and polyethylene. We developed this material a few years ago for automotive applications with Bentley, and this adhesive is now used in a lot of automotive and industrial applications.
What would you say sets your products apart from your competitors’?
It’s not just the products, though our products are of very high technical quality. One of the big things that we have and do that puts us above and beyond what our competitors cannot offer is our in-house testing laboratory facilities for tensile testing, climatic chamber and high-impact testing amongst other purpose-built adhesive testing equipment.
How long have you been offering testing services?
It’s something we’ve done for many years; however, we have developed the lab massively over the last few years. We have invested heavily in a tensometer, climatic chamber, impact tester and other equipment. The focus within the business is that we invest year on year in testing and adhesive development equipment. We offer our laboratory facilities free of charge to potential and existing customers as our investment and commitment to them and their applications.
All testing is carried out to set industry standards, testing to ISO, DIN and ASTM standards. Tensile, peel and T-peel, impact testing, age testing in our climatic chamber to age the bonded components 10 and 20 years. Testing is to prove our adhesives have enough strength to withstand the rigours of the application and give peace of mind to our customers that their bonded assemblies and our adhesives have the longevity of their application.
Is that kind of testing usually free of charge?
No, not at all. If you went to an external tester you would be paying thousands of pounds for this kind of testing.
We want to make sure our customers feel safe and comfortable that their components have been tested with our adhesive for compatibility and longevity. We don’t just carry out tensile testing on sets of lap shears, we’ll test the actual components in the Tensometer, manufacturing jigs to suit to allow the actual component to fit in the tensometer. A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.
What does the future hold for Advanced Adhesives?
Our business has grown in double figures percentage wise year on year for the last five or six years, so we fully intend to continue that trend, investing in plant and people. People advancement within the business is so important. We’re getting huge amounts of enquiries, not just from within our own customer base, but we’re getting our customer base recommending us to other potential customers. Referral is our most significant source of growth. So, I think the potential for business growth in the short and medium term is both realistic and achievable. Our continued and consistent commitment to great customer service is now bringing its own rewards. To be recommended by your customers to other people is a feather in our cap. We are obviously doing a good job with our customers, in that they’re confident to tell others about us.
Are you looking to add other testing services and what are they?
We’ve just built a new lab which has increased the lab size three-fold, a big investment we’re confident will benefit the business. The new lab is there for testing our adhesives on customers’ components, but a separate part of the lab is there to develop new adhesive technologies and to advance our current products also, products to future-proof our company. Developing adhesives to suit applications our customers will require going forward with the constant increase of new and exotic materials coming into the market, to ensure we can offer adhesives to bond what the future material interests will require them to bond.
CV Graham Crozier served in the Royal Air Force as an aircraft engineer for 13 years, working on Jaguar and Tornado aircraft. After leaving the RAF, Crozier moved into technical sales, using his technical background and engineering knowledge in the adhesive marketplace building up a wealth of adhesive and application knowledge. Crozier has worked in the adhesives industry for over 27 years and founded Advanced Adhesives in 1997. |
