House of smarts

Ultimately, the tesa adhesive technology has to meet the relevant product specifications, namely strength and durability requirements. These are usually a few years in the case of a smartphone, a full 15 years for a car and even 30 years when bonding facade parts.

After numerous trials, tesa is able to deliver clever adhesive tape elements for any scenario – tailored to the smart products of its major industrial customers. The know-how at Suzhou is available to the entire Asian market, from India to China to Australia – a region known as a source and stronghold of popular consumer electronics such as smartphones, tablets and wearables. “But also a longstanding key market for electromobility,” says Uwe Michel, “as you cannot have electric cars without display screens.”

The repairability of popular devices is a high-priority topic in China at the moment. Smartphones break quickly because they easily slip out of our hands and pockets. The screens and back panels are made of glass that shatters and has to be replaced. All of these elements, as well as the batteries, are often held in place today by wafer-thin tesa adhesive tape, which can also be detached to some extent to repair individual components. This is not only cheaper than purchasing a new device, but also more sustainable because it extends the service life. Some governments are also recognizing this. In Europe, for example, the law will require smart communication technology to be repairable to a certain extent from 2025 onward. “This means we have to find ways to ensure that individual parts can be replaced,” says Michel.

The Customer Solution Center is the right place for challenges like this, with the specialists there working tirelessly to find solutions – for example, if  a mobile phone manufacturer decides that a repair time of 45 minutes is 39 minutes too long. According to Uwe Michel, an impressive 80 discarded smartphones successfully served as guinea pigs in Suzhou. They were dropped, taken apart and then put back together perfectly. The bondings were repeatedly reformulated and repositioned until a new, doable six-minute repair standard was achieved. “Our customer is happy. Saving this time means real money for the manufacturer and ultimately also the repair shops.”

This is a good place to work – also in the field of electromobility. Every kilo counts when it comes to battery range, so tesa is helping to cut crucial weight from the electrical system, for example. “We are able to give a fixed form to cable bundles there, which had not been possible until now for space reasons. For this, we have developed a new cable wrapping tape that is cured by UV irradiation. This gives cable bundles in the electrical system a structure, while also reducing weight and creating space. Compared to conventional cable ducts and depending on the specific application, this can save up to hundreds of grams in weight. At the same time, it frees up room that can be used as precious installation space, which is often in short supply. Smart solutions can also be developed for new trends that are bringing increasing levels of functionality and intelligence to vehicles,” explains Uwe Michel.

The tape is now described digitally. While this does take a good two weeks, “customers know in advance all the special features that we can offer them and can swiftly adapt their product to take advantage of these. When they have drawings available at such an early stage, they can change something with just a few clicks on the computer, making the smartphone shell a little wider, for example, to suit. This eliminates complex reworking later on. Providing a digital twin means that our customers get a sample at an early stage, which really helps to accelerate development.”