Product and Technology Development

At times, they have to bond heavy components for decades. At times, they are required to be removable without leaving any residue. Some are much thinner than a single hair. And some may serve like a shock absorber. If necessary, they should either conduct electricity or protect against it. Light and heat management are also part of their many tasks. Nowadays, adhesive tapes are multi-talents and often do their demanding work "in the dark". As diverse as their functions are, the development process behind them is just as fascinating. Dive into the wide world of adhesive technology at tesa. 

Just take an adhesive agent, spread it on a carrier material such as foil, fabric, or paper – and add a cover sheet. Done! At first sight, producing an adhesive tape seems to be a quite simple task: However, many things that look easy to do, actually require a lot of work – and plenty of expertise. This is already made evident by the fact that the requirements for adhesive tapes can be extremely different: Some must sustain the highest demands such as cold, heat, rain, and UV radiation for decades. In other tapes, the adhesive layer matrix must even take on additional functions such as absorbing shocks or conducting electricity. The currently thinnest double-sided adhesive tape manufactured by tesa for use in smartphones measures just three micrometers – That's sixteen times finer than a human hair! On the other hand, the thickest foamed tesa tapes, which are used, among others, in the construction industry, measure more than 5,000 micrometers, i.e. five millimeters.

To develop and manufacture innovative adhesive tapes, you need a good mix of physics, chemistry, engineering – and creativity. Adhesives are generally based either on natural or synthetic rubber or on acrylates. While in the past large quantities of organic solvents were used in the manufacturing process, today, these solvents can often either be recycled or – as with extruded adhesives – completely salvaged. That economizes resources and protects our environment. In terms of technology development, the company strives to identify trends at an early stage and to convert them promptly into marketable products. For example, tesa produces optically clear adhesive films in its clean room unit at the plant Hamburg, Germany for use in the displays of smartphones and navigation devices. The room air in the production facility is 100 times cleaner than on a mountain peak, thus, there are virtually no dust particles on the highly transparent films. Another clean room is currently being built in the Suzhou plant in China. 

On the other hand, one of tesa's core competencies is the use of innovative adhesive tape solutions to make customers' production processes more efficient. For example, the automation of hole covering on car bodies in cooperation with a robot manufacturer. Up to now, employees in the automotive industry had to manually cover up to 220 holes with plugs or adhesive die-cut parts.   

Infrared spectroscopy, micro-computed tomography, scanning electron microscopy, rheology: Such terms and the related equipment in the seven-digit Euro range are probably more common in large university hospitals than in a company like tesa. However, to understand adhesives in detail, meet customer requirements or be able to drive innovations with completely new insights, a central analytics department with first-class experts, methods, and equipment is essential – and one of the success factors at tesa.

Ultimately, technology and product developers are theoretically capable of developing more than a million different adhesives – from slightly adhesive to non-removable, from soft foamed to "hard as a board" – by simply modifying a few parameters. Today, approximately 250 are used commercially on a larger scale. A current example from the analytical practice: While car buyers in Europe appreciate the typical synthetic scent of a new vehicle, this is an absolute no-go for the Chinese. There, new cars must give off a neutral scent: "Low Odor" is the name of the requirement from the Asian industry. A major challenge for manufacturers of chemical products that tesa is able to master thanks to its experts. By the way: The analytics team in Norderstedt was even able to solve a more than 2500-year-old mystery about the biblical "Tower of Babel".

A person sits in a laboratory in front of simmering substances and suddenly has a flash of inspiration – the initial spark for a sensational product. Or an experiment fails, but unexpectedly something ingenious emerges. This is what the working world of inventors looks like – at least in motion pictures. Even though this does happen over and again, it has little to do with the systematic control of modern innovation processes. How can we find "intelligent" approaches, initial ideas created within the company, collated, qualified, and further developed so that in the end a product emerges that is marketable and contributes significantly to our added value? To answer these complex questions, tesa operates innovation management systematically and successfully. Agile working methods and modern project management ensure that customers get exactly the solution they need even faster.

Moreover, tesa is increasingly relying on so-called open innovation platforms. These include "idea generators" and cooperation partners who, with their specific expertise, make a significant contribution to the fact that the possibilities of adhesive technology are almost unlimited also in the future.

For decades, a bulging sample case with a selection of the assortment and various brochures has been a constant companion, especially for the sales force. Even today, it is of great value to be able to pick up adhesive tapes "live" and try them out. However, digital tools and services are in demand more than ever: To exchange and evaluate up-to-date information, for example measurement results from test procedures, over thousands of kilometers within product and technology development, as well as to provide customers all over the world with relevant figures, data, and facts as quickly as possible. 

One simple fact cannot be denied: tesa is a chemical company – and it will always be one. This makes the tesa Group all the more aware of its great responsibility to set particular accents when it comes to sustainability. And by no means only because the topic is becoming ever more important both to customers and to the general public. tesa has always made great efforts to use environmentally friendly production technologies to reduce the use of solvents, for example, and to steadily decrease the CO₂ footprint through energy-saving measures. For example, between 2001 and 2019, the company was able to almost halve its CO₂ emissions and solvents per ton of end product.