International. Royal DSM, a global scientific company dedicated to health, nutrition and materials, has launched a collaboration with Vepa, a project furniture design company. The goal of this collaboration is to demonstrate the value of powder coating technology as an operationally convenient and sustainable alternative to solvent-based liquid coating technology for heat-sensitive substrates.
Initially, Vepa will produce a furniture product line with DSM's patented powder coating technology, which will be commercially available in August 2018. A second product line will be launched at the end of 2018.
Like many other furniture manufacturers and designers around the world, Vepa seeks to leverage powder coating technology to gain a competitive advantage, as this technology has been shown to improve the operational efficiency of the coating application, the overall environmental impact of the manufacturing process, and the aesthetic qualities of the final product. In this way, Vepa will reduce operating costs, increase the value of the final product and have a mechanism for significant differentiation. On a more immediate level, Vepa's decision to apply powder coating technology was driven by the successful expertise of Kempa, a Belgian manufacturing company that supplies powder-coated furniture panels.
Gertjan de Kam, Design and Development Manager, Vepa: "Powder coating technology offers several important advantages for furniture manufacturers. Above all, powder coating allows for greater design freedom, as it can be applied even on unusual shapes, edges, voids and contours, allowing for imaginative new designs of substrates and semi-assemblies that could not be easily finished with liquid coatings. At Vepa, we're excited to move forward hand in hand with DSM – powder coating technology opens up new horizons for us."
Developed specifically for use in MDF and other wood products, DSM's Uralac Ultra powder coating technology provides the basis for IGP, a specialist in powder coating applications, to develop an end product solution that matches Vepa's product demands. Once the furniture panels have been successfully coated with IGP's final product solution, Vepa will assemble and distribute them.
