Roto in India – Unfulfilled Potential? Martin Coles - Founder & Managing Director
Roto in India should be growing twice as fast and be much more profitable
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Rotomoulding Has An Image Problem
• Cheap and low tech
• Labour intensive with little automation
• Tolerance and consistency issues
• Brittleness and physical property limitations
• Just a process for making water tanks and road barriers?
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Reality Check
• Roto can be low investment and low tech
• Products can be variable and poor quality
• Barriers to entry are small
• Competitors can copy and set up with low investment and knowledge
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Rotomoulding Looks Easy (& is seductive)… but it isn’t!
• Simple concept and appears uncomplicated
• Reality - most complex of all plastics processes!
• Casting process with no pressure
• Multiple variables
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New Entrants Struggle
• New moulders under-estimate complexity and knowledge – this is a global issue
• Sub-standard copycats
• Low quality
• Price and cost driven market
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Is This The Image We Want Roto To Have?
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Roto Must Up Its Game
• Improve quality, reliability and consistency
• Introduce better designed and more interesting products
• Educate
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How Do We Improve Quality & Consistency?
• Good design
• Good moulds
• Good operators and management
• Good materials (including powder quality)
• Good processing and achieving optimum cure
• All of the above
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Latest Technologies Make It Easier Than Ever To Make Better, More Complex & Advanced Products
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Moulds – Aluminium CNC
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Design
• Finite Element Analysis
• Better understanding of performance of materials in Roto
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Processing
• PIAT – Peak Internal Air Temperature – optimum cure
• Lots of devices available
• Internal cooling and pressurisation
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Automated Manufacturing
• Persico SMART Leonardo
• AMS Robotics
• Devices for automated powder dispensing, opening and closing of moulds, coated moulds
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Material Advances • Better stabilised polymers
• Harder and higher density tough Polyethylene
• Low shrinkage materials
• Conductives, flame retardants, foams
• Wider use of colour compound
• Availability of hexene (C6), octene & mLLDPE
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So It’s Easier Than Ever…
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To Mould Consistently Tight Tolerences…
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Have Outstanding Surface Finishes..
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And To Be Pin-hole Free…
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Have Novel & Interesting Effects…
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Replacing Traditional Materials…
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And Have High Stiffness & Impact Strength
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And Unbelievable Toughness..
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Where Do We Find More Interesting & Diverse Products – Where Are The Opportunities?
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Infrastructure
• Sanitation
• Waste collection
• Underground tanks (storage, storm surge, septic)
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The Key To Successful Underground Tanks • Right design
• Right mould
• Right material (ideally hexene) & powder
• Right processing – optimum cure
• Right handling and installation
• Standards
• NEED ALL OF THE ABOVE 26
Transport Related
• Road “furniture” – signs, bollards, bins
• Automotive – trucks, tractors, earth movers and buses
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Replacement Of Traditional Materials
• Wood
• Steel
• Concrete
• Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP/FRP)
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Identifying Opportunities?
• Existing customers
• 1000’s of existing Roto products globally
• Relationships with foreign Rotomoulders
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Promote The Process!
• Not enough people know about Roto
• Common misconceptions
• Educate…
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Education
• Colleges and universities
• Designers
• Customers and OEMs
• Shop floor and management training
• StAR
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Do You Too Believe That Roto In India Should Be Growing Much Faster?
• Embrace new technologies
• Improve design, moulds, materials, processing
• Innovate & new products
• Educate
• Support StAR & enjoy the conference!!
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Thank you! [email protected] matrixpolymers.com