Dr. Ruth Bieringer, Vice President, Material Technology within Technology & Innovation (T & I) organization at Freudenberg Sealing Technologies (FST), presents her views on a wide range of topics related to materials.
“We now have a huge opportunity to position our portfolio, and thus, the entire company more broadly. Our mission and our circle of customers are expanding, and our range of materials is becoming more diverse. We are dealing with extremely exciting issues and new products for new markets. These are new challenges.”
The Distribution of Tasks: T & I and the Divisions
“At T & I, we primarily deal with advance developments. This either relates to entirely new fields where FST is not yet active, or areas that affect more than one division or are of overarching interest. For their part, the divisions mainly do incremental development work, meaning the steady, gradual improvement of existing products, services and processes. We provide support when it is needed.
What is crucial for the future is highly networked collaboration between T & I and the divisions. This is required to avoid redundancies, as well as prioritizing issues correctly. We have to make sure that everyone at FST is working on the right content and that we are dedicated to precisely the issues that are truly relevant to us and our customers. In the current strategy period, we want to structure this networked cooperation between materials development at T & I and the divisions even more clearly.”
Challenges for Materials Development
“We now have entirely new issues to manage, in applications and markets, and in dealing with customers we have not yet met. We are launching development projects without initially knowing the materials or processes required, nor exactly what the component will look like in the end. The issues will primarily center around transformation; batteries; fuel cells; electrolysis; the hydrogen economy; electric mobility; wind power; and solar energy. These are the biggest drivers of today’s developments.
These new topics are much more comprehensive and challenging than those of the past, such as the development of a new Simmerring® generation. The experts at the division level have been handling these sorts of developments very well on their own, without much support from T & I. But a decentralized approach doesn’t go very far in these new areas. When it comes to the new applications, we need guidelines that are created centrally to be sure everyone is heading in the right direction. We have to reduce complexity in the company, and that requires new ways of thinking. It will be an ongoing process with small steps. It won’t be a revolution.
Material properties that have not been our focus previously, are becoming important. There are materials that have to be electrically conductive. Or thermally insulating. Or thermally conductive. Or electromagnetically protective with the help of shielding. At FST, we have traditionally dealt with rubber, and with the rubber-metal connection. Now we are increasingly dealing with thermoplastics and different material combinations such as rubber-thermoplastic bonds. This goes hand-in-hand with different processing methods or different ways to generate materials, process them further, and turn them into products. In short, our portfolio of materials and the material qualities that concern us, are clearly becoming more diverse. This combination of a more diverse material portfolio and the growing number of material qualities available, are posing a significant challenge.”
Incubators: One Path to Solutions
“FST has set up incubator teams to work on promising development topics selected by analyzing market priorities. Why is that? First of all, we don’t want to develop anything in an ivory tower at T & I and then pass it on to the divisions. In turn, no division can tackle these projects alone anymore, given the radical new developments we are seeing. New fundamental developments of this kind have to be managed centrally, with proper structures, project management, documentation and stage-gate processes in place. All FST experts, from T & I, the divisions and sales, are integrated within the incubator teams.”
A Trend: Plastic instead of Metal
“There has been a trend away from metal and toward plastics for years, to save weight and offer plastics’ greater design capabilities. This trend is accelerating in new applications and technologies. With this in mind, we are starting to produce plastic materials ourselves in some cases, rather than purchasing them, to tailor them to customer applications. In some cases, we have been unable to find a suitable plastic for new applications, so we have to make it ourselves. That’s why my team has a plastics group that we would like to expand.”
A Must: Developing Materials at a Faster Pace
“The windows of opportunity for FST in new markets are only opening up for a limited time. We have to be fast. Development work is increasingly a matter of speed and efficiency. That’s why we are even more deeply involved with digitalization in the materials field. How can we use existing knowledge even more effectively? How can we network data and people intelligently? Methods such as artificial intelligence and machine learning can help us shorten our development cycles.
For example, we need smarter tests so that we can learn what distinguishes the material with less testing and in a shorter time. Ideally, we would be able to predict the characteristics of recipes with the help of large quantities of data based on what is currently known. If the computer spits out a few model compounds as a starting point for our work, based on the specifications and parameters that we have input, we accelerate the process.
The kind of computer simulations that we use in the development of products and processes – for example, to simulate the behavior of a material as it flows into a mold cavity – is unfortunately not currently available to us when we select the best possible material for a product. This is an important topic for the future, too. Thanks to our colleagues in corporate research at FTI, we can already use simulations to forecast a material’s operating life in a specific application. Overall, when it comes to digitalization and simulation, the goal is to reduce the time-consuming development loops that are often associated with extensive lab work.”
Two Standards: The Tip and The PDP Development Processes
“We need clearly defined, globally-standardized processes to develop innovative solutions for new fields ranging from electric mobility to the hydrogen economy. Due to the overarching nature of the new issues, a centrally-managed process is more promising than one that is decentralized.
Working with the divisions, T & I developed two structured process standards that FST is using in product development. Both are stage-gate processes. That means the entire development process is divided into segments. After every segment, the project is evaluated and a decision is made on whether it should be canceled or continued.
One of the two FST process standards is the rather incremental Product Development Process, or PDP. It usually involves the continued development of existing products or work in fields that are very familiar to FST. PDP is mostly used in the divisions.
In recent years, we have relaunched the Technology Innovation Process, or TIP. At T & I, we use TIP to address the major new topics. We often don’t know how to tackle them at the outset. TIP starts much earlier than PDP: We first have to figure out where to start our development work. In these cases, the overall responsibility within T & I lies with Advanced Product Development. Material development – like process development – could almost be seen as a supplier. Once the innovation reaches a certain level of maturity, the advance development process TIP transitions into the normal process, PDP. This often occurs with the project’s transfer to a division, where the innovation then makes its home.
At the start, we do not have a specific customer request. But early on, even at the advance development stage, we try to bring one or two lead customers on board. This can immediately give us customer feedback, and we see whether we are on the right track.”
Keyword: Raw Material Shortages
“The raw material markets have quieted down after the severe bottlenecks of recent years. Still, we want to reduce our dependence on individual countries and suppliers. In materials development, the pendulum at FST is swinging more toward centralization in light of the major challenges and overarching issues that are emerging. But raw materials procurement is trending toward shorter supply chains in line with the idea of ‘local for local.’ That’s what our colleagues in purchasing and supply chain management are working on.”
Keyword: Raw Materials Management
We tap into a very large portfolio of materials at FST – with correspondingly large costs of administration. So we are dealing with the question of how we can standardize our raw materials to a greater degree. We want to keep our raw materials portfolio from getting out of hand and its handling from becoming too complicated. The solution is to decrease complexity by reducing the range of compounds. There is a need for action on this front during this strategy period.
The issue of dual sourcing/raw material qualification is also on our agenda. How can we position ourselves more flexibly for future crises, bottlenecks or a supplier’s price increases? How do we create more flexibility in the choice of raw materials? When a raw material becomes extremely expensive or is in short supply, can we use a different one? We want to position ourselves more flexibly and robustly in this area.”
Keyword: PFAS
“The European Union is planning to restrict or ban the use of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which include the fluoropolymers FKM and PTFE.
The solution will be a work in progress over the next few years. We have to manage it centrally – and effectively. We earn a significant share of our revenue with products that contain fluoropolymers that fall into the PFAS category.
The issue has several dimensions for FST. In the worst case, the use of the material group would be restricted. That would be disruptive and represent a huge challenge. We would have to find ways of replacing the materials. It is still unclear whether things will go that far at some point. One consideration is that PTFE, as such, is not toxic. It is used as a coating for cooking pans or even in implants for the human body.
In my view, the much more urgent problem is the fact that our PTFE and FKM suppliers have to reconfigure their production on short notice so it runs without the emission of environmentally harmful chemicals containing fluorine. All of our suppliers are working on the conversions of their processes along these lines. In the process, they are switching to different types of materials. In the future, they will no longer be giving us exactly what we are getting today. This could have far-reaching effects on our processes, end-products and their performance.
From our standpoint, the changes underway at our raw material suppliers are a huge expense. We have to closely examine the entire portfolio that has been affected. We also realize that our suppliers are not just changing their portfolios in terms of their material characteristics – they are streamlining them as well. Some varieties are being eliminated without replacements. With that in mind, we are going to have to adjust our recipes.
One example illustrates the impact of the changes we expect shortly: One type of polymer from a single manufacturer is sent to FST sites where we turn it into compounds. We make 34 different kinds of them. These compounds are sent to 17 of FST’s production sites throughout the world. They have 87 customers buying 290 different items, in volumes of 90 million units a year. And we don’t have just one supplier – we have several. In each case, we source many kinds of polymer from the supplier, not just one. The situation is similar for each of them. We have to check recipes for each of these kinds of material. Sometimes we have to change the recipe, sometimes the process. And then we have to talk to our customers and show them the change. Then they have to give their approval. All of this ties up resources.
We may also have to think about what happens to the fluoropolymer waste when the seal reaches the end of its life. How can our products be discarded without adding to emissions? In short, the entire organization is dealing with a range of PFAS issues, from development to sales. That will be the case even if we are allowed to continue using fluoropolymers.”
Keyword: Sustainability
“Sustainability has so far not been the decisive criterion determining why customers buy our products. Today our products are mainly purchased because they perform well and are sold at a price that matches their performance. But more and more customers are asking about the CO2 footprint of our seals. In addition to price and performance, sustainability will be a third sales criterion in the future.
One of our internal projects has the goal of making our raw material portfolio more sustainable. Among other things, it involves evaluating our individual raw materials for their sustainability. We have already incorporated these values into our recipe database. We have assigned data to certain raw material groups that we obtained from external databases. But so far, we don’t have client-specific data. In the future, we want our suppliers to tell us what kind of carbon-dioxide baggage a raw material is carrying. We are also exploring materials coming from renewable sources or recycling loops. They have small footprints.
The sustainability of the seal depends on more than just its material. It is largely associated with the energy required for the production process as well. In my view, the efficiency of these processes is the more powerful lever for improved sustainability. Waste reduction also plays an important role.”
Dr. Ruth Bieringer …
… has been in charge of material technology in the Technology & Innovation unit of Freudenberg Sealing Technologies (FST) since 2020, in the position of Vice President. Bierenger, a polymer chemist with a doctorate in the field, is responsible for materials engineering and advance development at FST. She also oversees compliance, that is, the adherence to regulations and laws such as the European Union’s chemical directive REACH. About three-fifths of her nearly 50-person team are based in Weinheim, and two-fifths in Plymouth.
At the corporate level, Ruth Bieringer oversees the Freudenberg technology platform for polymers. She had already assumed this responsibility during her time at Freudenberg Technology Innovation (FTI). She first joined FTI, the Freudenberg Group’s main research and development activity, in 2003 as a project manager and then led several departments.
