Stay on top of the game

Specialty converter InteliCoat Technologies gives "many good reasons" to keep customers coming back.

Senior Editor Laura Butalla -- Converting Magazine, 9/1/2004

InteliCoat Technologies managers (left to right) David Neal, director of sales; Steve Polston, executive vp; and Greg Williams, vp-technology, pose with the lab coater in Matthews, NC.

Headquartered in South Hadley, MA, InteliCoat Technologies is a manufacturer of coated papers, films and specialty substrates, as well as a specialist in contract coating, laminating and finishing of flexible materials. With four manufacturing sites (South Hadley; Matthews, NC; Portland, OR; and Wrexham, UK) and employing around 800 people worldwide, this manufacturer/contractor is doing something right.

Like any company of its magnitude (sales in the hundreds of millions), InteliCoat has to make decisions about where to focus its time and investments. Significantly, InteliCoat capitalizes on its long-term customer relationships as well as future prospects. Much of the company 's growth comes from working and growing together with its customers and attracting new business by staying ahead of the technology curve and remaining sensitive to changes in the marketplace.

InteliCoat is also known for maintaining strategic partnerships with leading OEMs and private-label manufacturers. These companies use InteliCoat 's technical and manufacturing experience, R&D capabilities, and analytical services to improve their own technologies and to ensure a consistent, quality supply.

InteliCoat was a part of the image products division of Rexam until it was bought by Sun Capital Partners of Boca Raton, FL, in June 2002. At the time, Rexam chose to divest various divisions that weren 't part of its core can-packaging business.

Customized for customers

Operators prepare to unload a roll from the Matthews, NC, plant 's Machine 130, (above) a 62-in. wide slot-die coating line, which is in a Class 10000 cleanroom and has a Class 1000 coating head and Class 1000 multi-zone dryer. The product is running under a yellow safe-light. Machine 131, (below) a 32-in. wide tandem coater at Matthews, is undergoing a digital-drive upgrade this month.

The biggest part of InteliCoat 's business, 53 percent, is custom work where end-users bring their ideas to InteliCoat. "We also have our own products that we 've developed over the years," says David Neal, director of sales. Sometimes InteliCoat will even adapt its own products to specific customer needs, which Inteli-Coat will sell on either a private-label or co-branded basis.

Because its demand for specialty coatings is so wide, the converter 's equipment has to be flexible. Many pieces have unique modifications to accommodate proprietary coating methods, inline measurement or other requirements. "We were one of the first companies to achieve ISO certification in the US. We have quality systems that can be adjusted to meet different industries," says Neal.

In fact, InteliCoat 's line of equipment is quite impressive, and its millions of dollars in continuous investments over the years have been worth every penny. In the Matthews plant, there are three gravure coaters, one pilot coater, four roll coaters, four primary production coaters, and a lab coater. The gravure coaters - Number 129 and 171 - both started out as eight-station Champlain (Bobst Group) machines. They have since been retrofitted and modified to InteliCoat 's needs. Each station is capable of coating both sides of the web. The 171 machine is set up to run slightly thicker films and materials (0.5-30.0+ mils), while the 129 station was specifically modified to greatly enhance its thin-film handling capability (0.25-15.0+ mil). Machine 129 has excellent film-handling capability for 0.25-2.0-mil materials. Both machines are capable of running water- and solvent-based coatings. The 129 machine is fully enclosed in a white room area, so it has greater capability to produce cleaner coated products than the 171 machine. The 129 machine currently produces the Polaroid® mask product, which is the white border around the instant print films.

Machine number 128 has two gravure stations in addition to inline lamination capability. Originally a Faustel machine equipped with two coating heads and three dryer zones, it can apply single or double coatings inline, on either side of the web.

The four primary production coaters consist of two slot-die coaters (Number 130 and 127) running parallel to each other in two separate cleanrooms. The 130 coater is 62 in. wide, and the 127 has UV capabilities.

Environmentally sound
Being a solvent coater, environmental protection is very important to InteliCoat. It 's the company 's philosophy to be a good corporate citizen with respect to the environment in the communities where it has operations. This policy includes all environmental media - air, water, land, as well as environmentally sound disposal of waste, product stewardship, and other environmental impacts both to humans and the flora and fauna around each facility.

"We have invested a lot of money on protection of the environment, which is very important to us," Neal says. "We make sure that we 're a good steward of the environment as well as a good employer."

InteliCoat 's goal is to meet or exceed appropriate governmental agency standards and regulations regarding the environment while minimizing the impact of operations.

InteliCoat management takes responsibility for the Environmental Management Program within the company. All employees have the duty to conduct their work activities within the framework of applicable environmental regulations and to comply with good general environmental practice, consistent with the operations of the four facilities. Each site has an ongoing pollution prevention effort that is formed from a group of selected staff members that involves all environmental media and focuses on minimizing the environmental impact of the facility 's operations.

What they're all about
A team approach is the way InteliCoat goes about its business partnerships. "Each of our major pieces of business has a team. Within that team, you 'll have a commercial, technical, quality, manufacturing, and sales person, so you have the whole range," says Neal.

The team sits down together often to make sure everything's going as planned. Everyone is kept in the loop. From a business-team and a customer point of view, this is very important, says Neal. If the customer has questions or concerns about its product, they can come in and sit down with the entire team, he adds.

To keep existing customers, InteliCoat also looks beyond the current project of each customer. "Whether it 's a customer product or our own product, we look at the evolution of the product and work to develop new techniques and maintain awareness of directions in the market. We 're always asking, 'What 's the next stage? ' This is something we work on with customers," says Neal.

Sometimes, InteliCoat 's biggest challenge can be a customer thinking of bringing production in-house. If a product becomes successful enough, a customer may consider doing the manufacturing. InteliCoat 's solution? "We give customers added value with our R&D department that not only makes the product what it is today, but continues to improve it into the future," Neal says. "We always make sure we 're working for the future; never stand still."

According to InteliCoat, "never stand still" is another bonus to the team approach because they always have a team that 's looking out for customers ' best interests by looking ahead.

And, of course, InteliCoat is always looking into new products to develop and new markets to enter. In addition to continuing development of its contract-converting business, a strategic focus of the company is to work on creating branded products that will benefit the marketplace. "InteliCoat always has a variety of new products in different stages of development and involving different industries," Neal says. "At the moment, two products in a pre-launch phase are related to electronics."

Valuable mature markets
On the other hand, InteliCoat is certainly not about to abandon mature markets. "People say you shouldn 't look at mature markets, but you should because mature markets have gotten there for a reason," states Neal. "If you see a way to improve on the product offering, it can be a quick route from product development to actual market share."

As far as the future of coating is concerned, InteliCoat receives more and more subcontracted work these days. Its managers say many converters are currently unwilling to invest in larger coating-equipment lines. "When a company doesn 't have to make a large capital investment in equipment, human resources, facilities, etc., and can find a cost-effective way to manufacture its product at an exceptionally high quality level, that 's a very attractive option," Neal explains. "People are coming to us and saying, 'We want to contract instead.'"

Will subcontracting continue into the future? InteliCoat 's business was originally built on contract converting, and it continues to be a cornerstone. Its focus is to stay on top of its game, giving prospects many good reasons to bring contract coating to them. And - once they become customers - giving them many good reasons to keep being customers.

An overview of "InteliCoat"-ed product solutions
The range of coated products and converting services MA-based InteliCoat Technologies can offer is amazing. With coatings alone, its main focus is on digital imaging media, electronics films, medical components, and optical films. Of course, new developments and custom InteliCoat products can be created as well.

Digital imaging media: InteliCoat has developed a line of specialty paper and film media for large-format digital printing. For desktop applications, it develops, manufactures and distributes a range of precision-coated papers and films for sheetfed desktop printers. Its own custom products: Magic® and Azonw.

Electronics films: InteliCoat is capable of providing flexible circuitry, which is a range of copper laminates designed for manufacturers of flexible circuits for use in demanding environments. This is available on various substrates, including PET and PEN. Tecnilith® Artwork Protect Film adds stability and longer life to delicate electronic circuit board artwork. Duratool® 55 Series and 65 Series films are positive-working phototool films used for room-light duplicating of line negatives and positives. InteliCoat also offers carbon-filled, metal-coated polymeric films suited for evenly conducting electrical current or EMI/RFI shielding.

Medical components: Inspirewis a range of advanced flexible components--adhesives, thin film, foams, hybrids, and conductives--that InteliCoat supplies to specialist manufacturers in the wound-care, ostomy and medical-device sectors. An important part of medical components is the ability to increase moisture vapor transmission rates, which InteliCoat accomplishes with its adhesives and foams.

Optical films: In this field, InteliCoat offers a number of window film and protective overlaminate products. Strat FX® is a hard-coated gloss and anti-glare flexible film engineered to provide clarity and protection for flat-panel displays in medical, industrial, military and consumer electronic applications. Reflex® is a hard-coated graphic overlay polyester film sold to manufacturers and end-users of membrane touch switches, nameplates, special labels and durable back-printed graphics

Coating services: InteliCoat provides both small-scale trial up to large-scale production operations featuring versatile coating capabilities such as slot-die, reverse-roll and direct-gravure. Industries served include automotive, coated fabrics, defense, digital imaging, electronics, information storage, medical, photography, and security.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
CONVERTER:
INTELICOAT TECHNOLOGIES LLC,
800/688-9171, fax: 704/845-4307,
www.intelicoat.com

SUPPLIERS:
BOBST GROUP, FLEXIBLE MATERIALS BUSINESS AREA,
888/226-8800, fax: 973/226-8625,
www.bobstgroup.com

FAUSTEL, INC.,
262/253-3333, fax: 262/253-3334,
www.faustel.com