Andrew Purdy, National Adhesives` marketing manager for converting, explains more about the Cost-in-Use Calculator - a unique application that enables customers to analyse adhesive performance at every stage of the laminating production process.

``All things are cheap to the saving, dear to the wasteful.``

Benjamin Franklin

Those who skimp on the essentials often find that they don`t benefit from anything but short-term cash savings. In business turnover is important, but there’s no denying profit is king.

National Adhesives is very aware of end-user concerns, and actively designs more effective ways to maximise productivity and reduce costs. For board laminators and litho laminators specifically, nowhere is this more apparent than in National’s AEROBOND system - a unique aeration unit that infuses air bubbles into the laminating adhesive. This reduces the amount of adhesive applied, creating significant customer benefits.

``Making the most of an adhesive product means considering its impact across the entire production line,`` explains Jens Erban, systems support engineer, National Adhesives. ``However there are some end-users who look for the cheapest price per kilo, and they’re often losing out. To get the most effective ‘bang for your buck’, factors such as total cost per unit and machine downtime need to be take into consideration, as they’re all factors that affect the cost of the process.``

As part of National Adhesives` commitment to strategic innovation and customer profitability, the company has created the Cost-in-Use Calculator -an Excel-based analysis tool that calculates the variance of cost factors between different adhesives and their specific influence on performance in the lamination process.

Already successfully implemented with the AEROBOND product, the Cost-in-Use Calculator enables the customer to take into account the different influences of the adhesive to the production process. Instead of calculating costs by analysing bulk purchase (tonnes of adhesive) and application usage (m² of paper), the customer can examine all production line costs and offset the adhesive expense against them.

``What’s great about the calculator is that every customer is able to obtain reliable information and facts about the advantages of using an adhesive like AEROBOND before incurring any costs,`` Jens Erban explains. ``All data variables are input during the sales process, so the customer can express concerns about production costs from the outset, enabling a more realistic adhesive usage estimate.``

Key concerns for corrugated cardboard manufacturers include: substrates, line costs (investment, pay back time), HR cost of the operators on the line, and order specific information (length, width, production speed, and used weight of adhesive). The Cost-in Use Calculator is programmed to assess these across the lamination process in order to identify gaps using the following variables:

- Consumption (monthly, yearly) in g/m²
- Productivity (monthly, yearly) in m²
- Adhesive consumption (monthly, yearly) in kg
- Average width and length
- Average speed
- Productivity
- Total costs per 10,000 units

``By informing end-users of the influence a high quality adhesive has on the total process and costs, we aim to encourage them to consider productivity, consumption and performance in a different way,`` Jens explains. ``The cheapest product is not always the most cost-effective, but the adhesive that contributes to the lowest costs will be the most beneficial``.

For more information please contact:

Rebecca Whincup or Dave Barton
Clear Communications.
T: 01666 501110
E: rwhincup@clearcommunications.co.uk / dbarton@clearcommunications.co.uk