Date:
08 Nov 2014
| Author: P.Tharyan
To begin with can you give me details about
SABIC’s India operations? How long have you been in India? What is your scale
of operation here and the number of people working in your offices/units? Do
you carry out any manufacturing here in India?
SABIC has had a presence in India since 1994. We have six strategic business
units, of which five are active in India – Chemicals, Performance Chemicals,
Polymers, Fertilizers and Innovative Plastics. We have hundreds of SABIC people
spread out across 11 offices. We also have manufacturing operations in Vadodara
and research activities in Bangalore. This technology centre, recently
inaugurated, was built with an initial investment of $100 million USD. The centre
is one of 19 global R&D centers of excellence for SABIC and home to several
hundred scientists, who are carrying out cutting-edge research into new
platforms for next-generation materials across industry sectors, including
automotive. So, we are doing some very important work here in India, work that
matters not only to the local industry, but to our customers worldwide.
SABIC produces chemicals, polymers and fertilizers and it serves diverse
markets such as Healthcare, Transportation, Automotive, Electrical, Lighting
and Consumer Electronics.....and it is a US$50 billion company. How much of
these sales come from the automotive segment? Is it fair to say you are
primarily a supplier to OEMs or do you also have an aftermarket share?
Our policy is not to disclose the percentage of sales from any one industry
segment. That said, the automotive industry is very important to SABIC. We have
served the global automotive industry for about 60 years. During that time, we
have helped the industry pioneer the use of thermoplastics across a wide
variety of components and systems from bumper to bumper. We collaborate primarily with OEMs and their suppliers on
application/vehicle programs, drawing upon our engineering design expertise to
help them overcome a wide variety of challenges, from taking weight out of
vehicles and meeting regulatory requirements to reducing system costs and
manufacturing complexity.
Of the different regions of the world, Europe,
North America, Asia Pacific, etc., which region contributes the most towards
automotive related sales? Is India a promising market?
Today, we have a strong automotive customer base across each of the different
regions. More and more automotive production is moving to Asia Pacific, and we
are committed to grow with automakers there to ensure that they have the
support to meet their future needs.
The chemicals industry in India is one of the fastest growing industries in the
country and India has a shortage of petrochemical materials, which makes it an
interesting and promising market for SABIC. Today, we are working with OEMs
within and across various industries, including automotive, helping them
develop solutions to meet their toughest challenges.
The automotive industry is very promising, particularly when you look to the
growth in vehicle ownership in the country, which is among the fastest anywhere
in the world. A growing middle class and the increasing affordability of
vehicles contribute to a positive outlook. At the same time, this kind of
growth comes with environmental challenges and so it is very important that the
industry work together to develop technologies that contribute to greater
efficiency and fewer emissions.
Increasingly, the industry is turning toward thermoplastics to help it meet new
standards in fuel efficiency and environmental performance. SABIC is well
positioned to help the industry with one of the world’s broadest selections of
materials, light-weighting expertise and engineering design competence, all of
which can help OEMs optimise systems, parts and processes.
Your product portfolio includes thermoplastic
resins, coatings, specialty compounds, film, and sheet. How many of these
products find their way into vehicles and within vehicles, where are these
parts generally used?
We
manufacture and compound a wide range of materials for the automotive industry.
The good thing is that our problem-solving materials are versatile; they can be
used in practically every application space that we serve today, including:
chassis, electrical and electronics, exteriors, interiors, lighting, powertrain
and fuel systems. So, our materials go into a wide variety of parts that you
can see and some that you can’t: dashboards or instrument panels, door modules,
tailgates, front headlights, body panels like fenders, fuel doors, front
grilles, front and rear bumpers, engine components, wiring, and so much more.
This is one of the advantages of working with a materials supplier like SABIC –
we have one of the broadest range of thermoplastics materials, which can be
used widely across the entire vehicle, and these problem-solving materials are
complemented by the engineering design competence of our global team of
automotive specialists.
SABIC has worked with some automotive brands like
Volkswagen, Land Rover, Fiat, Mitsubishi and Hyundai to help develop new
products. Do you continue working with them or does this list keep changing as
per the requirement from the OEMs? Can you also tell us something about the
products you have developed with some of the players?
We feel privileged to serve the automotive industry and have a distinguished
track record collaborating with OEMs and suppliers across the value chain.
While we have on-going relationships with some of the world’s largest OEMs, we
work across the entire automotive industry and collaborate with both
established and emerging automakers across the world.
In terms of product examples, one could look at the Range Rover Evoque. This
vehicle features a range of SABIC materials, which help lighten the vehicle and
support improved fuel consumption and fewer emissions. SABIC plastics were used
for the front fenders, the pedestrian energy absorber, the instrument panel and
inner door modules, and the mirror system (see press release for more detail).
Molding all of those parts out of SABIC’s materials contributed significantly
to Jaguar Land Rover’s efforts to take weight out of the vehicle, while also
providing greater design freedom and making possible part consolidation and
system cost reduction opportunities as well.
Another product highlight comes from some pioneering work SABIC did with Indian
automaker Mahindra & Mahindra. We helped this OEM produce India’s first
injection molded plastic fenders, which were placed on the critically acclaimed
global XUV500 SUV. For these fenders, the OEM upgraded from steel to our
lightweight, online paintable NORYL GTX resin, a blend of polyamide (PA) and
modified polyphenylene ether (PPE) polymer technologies. Using a plastic
solution like this contributed to the weight target goals of the OEM and helped
make this vehicle one of the lightest SUVs in its class. This particular fender
solution is 27 pc lighter than if it were made out of steel.
There are a couple of other
interesting parts to this fender story with Mahindra & Mahindra. Because
plastic can be molded into shapes that aren’t possible with steel, the OEM had the
freedom to design aggressively flared fenders with accentuated curves and bold
lines to create the muscular cheetah-like look that it wanted for the XUV500.
Also, this fender is much more durable and stands up better against minor
accidents because of its impact strength, its ability to flex as well as the
broad environmental resistance it offers. We think this is a good example,
right here in India, of what SABIC thermoplastics and our engineering design
competence can do to support automakers’ efforts to continually enhance their
products, whether it’s improving fuel economy and lowering emissions through
weight out, creating cutting-edge styling or enhancing durability.
Innovative Plastics makes the critical plastic
parts for vehicles. Obviously these are no ordinary plastics. Can these
plastics withstand high temperatures and a high degree of wear and tear?
First, to clarify, SABIC does
not make plastic automotive parts. Rather, we make the plastic resins that
molders use to make those parts. With that said, we are much more than a producer
of plastics. We are a solutions provides that collaborates with automakers and
tier suppliers in the earliest stages of the part design process to help them maximize
their desired results, whether it’s light-weighting taking the most weight
possible out of a part, significantly enhancing durability, reducing part and
manufacturing complexity or some other objective. The reason we can contribute
at those early stages is that we can draw from the engineering design expertise
of our teams across the world, including our team in India and Asia Pacific, which
spans practically every major application space across the vehicle.
On plastics that can take the heat and offer a high degree of wear and tear, we
offer a number of options. One example is ULTEM resin, a polyetherimide (PEI)
material with outstanding high temperature resistance, high strength and
stiffness and broad chemical resistance. Various grades of this resin are used
today in automotive lighting applications, in which long-term heat resistance
is important.
A good example
of ULTEM resin in action in automotive lighting is use of the material in a fog
lamp developed by automotive lighting supplier Hella Slovenia and Volkswagen
for the Golf 7 and other select Volkswagen Group models. The design engineers needed a material that
could withstand high temperatures in a compact space. A material in our
portfolio, ULTEM AUT210 resin, which can withstand haze onset temperatures of
up to 210oC, answered the call and also allowed Volkswagen to
achieve the desired aesthetics and ensure a lightweight design. This is a good
example of our ability to help part designers push the boundaries of what is
possible.
ULTEM resin is
not only used in lighting, but also in powertrain parts like transmission
components, ignition components, sensors and more. Thermoplastic solutions like
ULTEM resin have proven effective at withstanding high temperatures of harsh
engine environments, allowing automakers to take weight out without
compromising performance.
A second example of a rugged material that we offer is NORYL™ resin, a modified
polyphenylene ether (mPPE) material. This is a very lightweight engineering
thermoplastic resin from SABIC that can help ensure the long-term durability of
battery components. A number of vehicles on the road today use NORYL resin in
battery parts, including Nissan’s all-electric LEAF. Nissan uses the material
for key components of its Lithium-Ion battery pack system to save up to 20
percent in weight for those parts, but also to achieve long-term dimensional
stability and enhanced flame retardancy. Other vehicles on the road today that
use NORYL resin include the Volkswagen Touareg Hybrid and the Ford Focus
Electric.
With emphasis on better fuel efficiency and
stringent environment norms, do you see lightweight automotive parts,
especially the ones made by you, replacing the traditional metal parts, yet
meeting the highest levels of safety, etc.?
We will continue to see metal and heavier materials replaced as the global automotive
industry moves to lighten vehicles in response to demanding fuel economy and
emission standards. Today, our thermoplastic materials are used on more and
more applications that used to be made out of steel. Our materials not only
help take out weight, but can also provide our customers with ways to enhance
safety.
As
an example, today, SABIC thermoplastics are used on front and rear energy
absorbers, which improve the crashworthiness of a vehicle in the event of a
collision. Ford uses XENOY resin from SABIC to construct a single-piece front
bumper energy absorber for its 2014MY Fusion and Mondeo platform. With its
stiffness, XENOY resin provides excellent energy absorption upon impact and can
retain its structural integrity across a wide range of temperatures. The part
is 40 percent lighter and 10 percent less costly than a comparable part made
out of steel. The part, which was recognized by the Society of Plastics
Engineers as one of 2013’s most innovative automotive plastic applications, is
also designed to minimize the severity of injuries to pedestrians in the event
of a collision.
In addition to replacing metal, another big opportunity is available to OEMs –
replacing glass in vehicle windows with polycarbonate (PC). Replacing conventional glass solutions with plastic
glazing can take out up to 50 percent in weight, depending on the design and
complexity of a window part. Rear quarter windows can be a good place for
automakers to start, and many are in production today, including those on the
Citroën DS5 and the Fiat 500L. Each of these windows use LEXAN™ resin, a PC material
from SABIC.
PC glazing is also a great candidate for applying to front quarter windows,
roofs and spoilers. One window application that holds tremendous potential is
the rear windshield or backlite. This is an application where automakers can
strive to take advantage of all the benefits made possible by PC glazing. One
of those benefits includes greater design freedom for the OEM to enhance the
styling and aerodynamics of the vehicle and to take advantage of expanded
possibilities for integrated other parts, such as the fixing for rear lighting,
antennas and cameras on a rear windshield, for example.
We are seeing great interest from OEMs in exploring the use of PC glazing on
various window applications, including rear windows.
Part of this interest, though certainly not all, has come from the all-plastic
tailgate concept that we have shared with the industry. This proposed tailgate
design can save up to 30 percent in weight compared to tailgates made out of
conventional materials like steel and glass. The tailgate concepts uses various
thermoplastic materials from SABIC and is truly all-plastic with the rear
window molded out of LEXAN resin. SABIC’s EXATEC™ plasma coating is used on the
rear window to provide glass-like scratch and UV resistance and to enable
automakers to meet homologation requirements for driver visibility.
In India, various industries consume your
products… aerospace, automobiles, healthcare, fertilizers, etc. Does it mean
your products cater to a wide variety of applications?
Yes. Our portfolio of products and technologies is diverse and also versatile
in that it can be applied to a wide variety of applications within one industry
and also across multiple industries. Today, in addition to serving automotive customers
in India, we are working on solutions for customers in industries like
construction, consumer electronics and mass transportation.