In manufacturing, a final assembly is only as reliable as its constituent parts and the bonding or joining method used to hold them together, or the coating method used for corrosion protection and/or the final ...
"Materials Science" sounds niche, and even a little peculiar, but no manufacturer is a stranger to the implications of material science principles for building reliable products. ...
The water break test is a common way for manufacturers to test the surface cleanliness of metals. Compared to other legacy cleanliness tests, it is relatively simple to perform, ...
What is the Difference Between Surface Tension and Surface Energy
The Water Break Test as a Surface Measurement Gauge
How to Bond PTFE to Anything
Is Roughness as Important as Surface Cleanliness to Adhesion?
How to Control Additive Blooming in Polymer Films
The Best Method of Controlling HMDS Use in Semiconductor Manufacturing
When manufacturing companies take adhesion seriously it can have a remarkable effect on their ability to achieve their business goals. The key is to take a strategic look at ...
Construction companies and the manufacturers who build the parts and materials that create buildings are relying on adhesives more than ever. When it comes to modern flooring, ...
There are a lot of reasons why sneakerheads love the shoes they covet. Athletic shoes have become one of the most sought after clothing items due to their aesthetic appeal but ...
The pathway to zero defect manufacturing through implementation of quality control procedures is found right there in the name. Quality control requires the control of variables ...
Quality control isn’t about preventing just the most egregious failure possibilities. It’s about setting high standards so that products are reliable for years. Control of quality ...
Powder coating is a widely used painting and coating technique to create protective and aesthetic barriers on products from vending machines at municipal pools to washers and ...
Time is always of the essence for medical device manufacturers. When a medical breakthrough needs to make it to market there is no time to waste. There is also no margin for ...
Even though coming to the end of 2020 has not at all meant the end of the impact of Covid-19, manufacturers are pushing forward to make sure 2021 is not marred by the setbacks of ...
In a recent study conducted by Instrumental, the top ten most common manufacturing defects were examined. The number one defect that manufacturers fight against is a deficiency in ...
It’s a common fallacy to assume we have a handle on the future based on past or present circumstances. If 2020 has collectively taught us anything, the bright shiny lesson is ...
Manufacturing processes can, on the surface, appear to be an amorphous web of convoluted conveyors and machinating machinery. But taking a closer look through the eyes of a ...
Predicting production outcomes in manufacturing relies on accurate data that calculates the variables that actually matter to things like reliability, performance and longevity of ...
Quality tests during medical device production need to check a lot of boxes for manufacturers. Testing must increase confidence in product reliability in order to be worthwhile to ...
2020 is a year that will live in infamy for many industries. We haven't even seen the full effect of Covid-19 on economies, which inserts a heap of uncertainty into decision ...
The seemingly easy and obvious answer to the question implied in the title of this article is: reliability means no failures whatsoever forever and ever, amen. Sadly, it’s not ...
Enterprise manufacturing operations are made up of interlocking, overlapping and critically interdependent processes. Each process in this symbiotic web consists of a series of ...
The sea change of 2020 has accelerated many shifts that were taking place within manufacturing over the past decade. We are either kicking down the door or being unwittingly swept ...
Backyard pool retail showrooms are a true wonder. Seeing behemoth, empty vessels crowding a giant indoor space is disorienting, but it’s not the most stunning aspect of that ...
We’ve all experienced the disappointing (and kinda embarrassing) moment when we’re at a register trying to buy armfuls of tortilla chips and salsa and the point of sale card ...
Coatings are an indispensable part of manufacturing photonics. The coatings help determine the most basic functionality of the lenses they are applied to. How much light passes ...
We’re all thinking a lot more about the surfaces we touch and the invisible things that might be on those surfaces. Manufacturers have been thinking about how surfaces interact ...
One of the most frustrating aspects of experiencing a problem in manufacturing isn't necessarily the issue itself, but rather, it's the difficulty of accurately determining and ...
Even though we look around us and see plastic everywhere, in every shape and imaginable application, metals are still a more commonly used raw material in machined products. ...
Manufacturers are always looking to create stronger, more durable, more reliable and, in the automotive and aerospace sectors, lightweight products. In this pursuit they’ve often ...
Comfort is more than just a nice thing to hope for when it comes to medical devices like tubing, catheters and stents that are implanted into the human body. Comfort, in this ...
We’ve mentioned many times, in various articles, that bonded material systems are becoming the norm for manufacturers in nearly every industry. In order to make finished products ...
Since COVID-19 has reshaped the economic landscape for the foreseeable future and there are many questions about how to safely and effectively respond to it, now is a good time ...
Many manufacturers have a dual performance concern when their products are out there in the world being used in whatever capacity they were designed for. These parallel interests ...
BTG Labs has several opportunities coming up for you to connect with our Materials Science and Manufacturing experts. Webinars are a great way to learn more about technologies and ...
Our relationship to our vehicles may have changed in the past few months with the idea of commuting to work looking more like a shuffle to the desk across the room rather than a ...
Cleanliness is next to production standardization requirements for medical device manufacturers (as the old saying goes). Devices built to be inserted within the human body ...
Validation and verification are inextricable from product development and process design for the manufacturing of medical devices. To satisfy regulatory standards, reduce risk, ...
We all take the ease of peeling open, and resealing packs of double stuff Oreos for granted. The plastic packaging that maintains the freshness of our favorite snacks and foods ...
The biomedical industry runs on testing. Testing is at the heart of meeting extensive requirements to ensure healthcare practices and facilities are safe. A kind of testing that ...
Like many industries during the COVID-19 crisis, manufacturing has had to make big changes including scaling back its workforce, enforcing new and intensified hygiene standards ...
An exciting development is taking place to make surface quality and cleanliness inspection technology more available to all manufacturers. We have collaborated with ASTM ...
When thinking about what manufacturing looks like, most people envision sparks flying, metal clanking and fires blazing. This isn’t too far off the mark since metals have been ...
Protective coverings are part and parcel of our lives these days. For industries reliant upon electronic components and connectors, protective coverings in the form of polymeric ...
One of our favorite services we provide to manufacturers is to help optimize surface preparation techniques for their particular materials and products. It’s our specialty and one ...
Vacuum plasma is the treatment method of record for many manufacturers. Not only because it is a legacy technology proven useful over many, many decades, but because it can be ...
Polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE is a very common material in wide use among almost every major industry. This ultra-lubricious and multi-use fluoropolymer touches everyone from ...
Lately, the whole world has been having variations on the same conversation. Whether the discussion centers on N95 masks, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes, or what ...
The way we work, live, and fundamentally interact with each other inevitably changes over time; sometimes those changes come much more rapidly than we anticipate or hope to see. ...
One of our many mantras at BTG Labs is that all manufacturers who bond, coat, seal, paint and print stand a better chance of fully understanding and controlling their ...
Cleanliness in manufacturing gains avid devotees all the time. Once the importance of cleanliness is grasped, it’s nearly impossible to think about manufacturing processes without ...
At IPC APEX 2020 in San Diego we wanted to explore the ways that electronics manufacturers, who are encapsulating their circuit boards with a conformal coating, are cleaning their ...
At IPC APEX 2020 in San Diego we got the chance to sit down and chat with Mike Konrad, from Aqueous Technologies and the Reliability Matters podcast, a show about the reliability ...
Adhesion problems don’t have a preference when it comes to the kind of damage they cause. Whether the end result is structural or cosmetic, headaches for manufacturers abound; ...
When an aircraft is manufactured, every single portion of the plane or jet is designed to be able to be serviced and repaired for the next 20-30 years. Aircraft manufacturing OEMs ...
Defining “clean” is actually more complicated than it sounds. Cleanliness can be in the eye of the beholder (I mean, we all had a college roommate who swore they were tidy, but ...
BTG Labs exists to solve adhesion problems in manufacturing no matter how long they’ve persisted, how complex their root causes may be, or what industry they manifest in. Toward ...
The field of printed circuit board finishing and bonding methods has been growing and diversifying for decades. The design of PCBs depends heavily on the use and environment of ...
Form-in-place-gaskets (FIPG) have been a revolutionary advancement in industries that bank on high-reliability sealing applications. FIPG is a versatile sealing technique that ...
A lot goes into painting an aircraft. This massive, multi-stage process begins long before that final, shiny topcoat you see on the wings and tail is applied. The components are ...
Electronic components consist of many exposed and delicate pieces that leave them vulnerable. A lot is relying on these fragile parts to function without fail. From implantable ...
One of the most pressing questions on the minds of manufacturing engineers is how to take a load off. Lightweighting, or shedding pounds on assembled vehicles and machinery, is a ...
It's been a wonderful year at BTG Labs and we'd like to take a moment to reflect on some of the things we're most proud of and grateful for. We've helped a lot of companies ...
When the subject of material surfaces comes up among manufacturing engineers the discussion usually centers on the physical attributes of that surface; the surface topography or ...
The Aerospace and Defense Industry is experiencing a market boom right now. Investments in the aerospace industry are an increasingly significant part of the world economy. Last ...
There’s no shame is asking for help. Adhesion problems have a tendency to be persistent and resilient to most solutions, causing frustration and long-term headaches at best, ...
When adhesion issues become apparent in a manufacturing process, they can seem to come out of nowhere. When coatings on circuit boards delaminate and cause shorts; when automotive ...
Excellent adhesion relies on manufacturer’s ability to understand and control three distinct yet interrelated elements. In manufacturing, adhesive bonding takes many forms but the ...
Adhesion is a powerful phenomenon that can hold massive structures together and fuse microscopic compounds. It is also extremely dependent upon delicate and fragile processes to ...
Our team at BTG Labs was entertained and honored that Popular Mechanics would feature BTG Labs and Giles Dillingham, Ph.D., CEO and Chief Scientist in a fascinating, and ...
In order to create predictable adhesion outcomes in manufacturing, precision is key. When thinking about the success of a bonding, printing, coating, sealing, painting or cleaning ...
New Product Development is an essential component to the successful growth of companies who always challenge themselves to improve and innovate. Getting this design stage right is ...
Adhesion problems have a tendency to show up in a manufacturing process and then overstay their welcome. The chronic nature of so many adhesion issues is due to factors that many ...
In manufacturing it is extremely difficult to eliminate all inefficiencies and production deficits. Setbacks that come in the form of scrap rates and rework resulting from product ...
There are a lot of options available to manufacturers who are trying to prevent product failures caused by imperfect adhesion. Many times the plan of attack is to budget adhesion ...
Adhesion processes vary widely across different industries that incorporate bonding, sealing, printing, coating, painting or cleaning into their manufacturing operations. Every ...
Dyne solutions have been the most common method of quality checking material surface cleanliness for decades. Their ubiquity and low cost have led them to be heavily relied upon ...
Cleanliness and adhesion go hand-in-hand. If you’re looking for an adhesion process to be successful then you are also absolutely interested in cleaning the materials involved in ...
In order to ensure successful bonding, coating, printing, painting, laminating or meet cleanliness standards in manufacturing, material surfaces must be manipulated. One such ...
Regulatory specifications in manufacturing exist to ensure that the highest quality, safest and most useful products are created. These are devised internally through research and ...
Production processes don’t just materialize, fully-formed on the manufacturing floor. Procedures and operations go through a full research and development cycle which can take ...
Process gaps emerge in production processes any time manufacturers do not have all the information they need to make decisions that will prevent or solve adhesion problems. Often ...
Manufacturers utilize research and design laboratories all the time. To scale new products up to the production line, years of toiling in testing labs is done to ensure that ...
When adhesion failure becomes apparent in manufacturing processes it can seem to come out of nowhere. Very often, there is no problem until suddenly there is. It feels ...
Automation is inherently fascinating. Robotic arms, programmed workflows and smart data. These innovations are populating the manufacturing space and are changing the landscape of ...
Manufacturing processes that involve bonding, coating, sealing, printing, painting, laminating or cleaning need a metric to measure the surface quality of the materials involved. ...
There are numerous obstacles to maintaining a material surface that is clean and fully prepared for adhesion in a manufacturing process. But there is one element that carries ...
Supply chain control is crucial to ensuring that the time, money and labor put into a production process doesn’t go to waste. Managing what comes into the production process has a ...
Certainty. This is the goal of every manufacturing process. Manufacturers need to have total confidence that every aspect of their production process will go according to plan. ...
Join Dr. Giles Dillingham Thursday June 13th at 2 p.m. U.S. EDT for a webinar titled: "Uncovering Non-Obvious Variables in Surface Preparation Processes for Bonding and Coating". ...
Join Dr. Giles Dillingham Thursday June 6th at 2 p.m. U.S. EDT. In this webinar you'll discover typically unnoticed, yet critical points throughout medical device manufacturing ...
Join Dr. Giles Dillingham Tuesday June 4th at 2 p.m. U.S. EDT. In this webinar you'll discover unnoticed yet critical points throughout manufacturing processes involving bonding, ...
Adhesion problems are an insidious concern to manufacturers in any industry with printing, painting, bonding, laminating or coating applications. These problems settle into a ...
What manufacturers know about the crucial role a successful adhesion process plays in a high-quality production operation and what manufacturers do about this fact can be widely ...
Various industries have different names for ways they change material surfaces during a production process. In medical fields and other industries dealing with high-reliability ...
BTG Labs is bringing our message of how to guarantee clean surfaces and eradicate adhesion failure directly to you. Whether you are on the coasts, in the Midwest or anywhere in ...
Polymer use spans nearly every manufacturing industry, so the troubles with controlling treatment methods in adhesion processes have touched a wide range of companies.
There are times when trying to discern if adhesion in manufacturing will succeed seems like a deeply mysterious and opaque puzzle. The water break test is a simple and fairly ...
April 2-4 we will be exhibiting at the Precision Machining Technology Show and Dr. Giles Dillingham will be presenting at the Parts Cleaning Conference co-located with PMTS. Dr. ...
When adhesion failure plagues a manufacturing process it can be particularly disruptive. A production process may be humming along just fine and then it suddenly becomes clear ...
Manufacturers often have a large blind spot when it comes to the causes of adhesion problems. This blind spot makes it impossible to solve these problems and generates frustration ...
Manufacturers are constantly fighting against adhesion problems. Surfaces not sticking and adhesives not working is the daily reality facing manufacturers looking to make high ...
For the past five years BTG Labs has been a major presence at the annual meeting of the Adhesion Society. This year we are heading to Hilton Head, SC ...
Disclaimer: this article is not about COVID-19, it is about a surface treatment process for better adhesion in manufacturing. If you're looking for information about cleaning, ...
BTG Labs is going to be exhibiting at the Medical Device and Manufacturing (MD&M) West medtech event Tuesday February 4 to Thursday February 7. Our Surface Experts will be joining ...
It’s easy to be dazzled by the advancements in electronic and medical devices that are constantly being made and discovered allowing manufacturers to work on increasingly micro ...
Members of the BTG Labs team will be exhibiting at IPC APEX in San Diego January 29-31 at the San Diego Convention Center. IPC APEX is one of the largest showcases of electronics ...
The BTG Labs suite of tools, that enable manufacturers and technicians to fully control their adhesion processes, has a new addition. The Surface Analyst 2001 introduces new ...
January 22 and 23 BTG Labs is heading to San Diego, California for the Advanced Packaging of Medical Microelectronics technical workshop hosted by the International ...
Parts washers are the heavy-duty, hardworking machines that have become irreplaceable staples in any automotive or machined part manufacturing process. As manufacturing processes ...
Co-written with Elizabeth Kidd, BTG Labs' Custom Applications Scientist. There's a logical fallacy akin to a "what's good for one is good for all" mindset that is devastating ...
The BTG Labs team spent a classy evening reminiscing on the exceptional year we are saying goodbye to.
The pervasiveness of electronics in every manufacturing industry has provided unique challenges. Manufacturers are tasked with protecting these componentsin environments that make ...
Plastics are ubiquitous a material as they come, and there is nary an industry that does not utilize them in an adhesion application; medical device, automotive, aerospace, ...
This Tuesday, December 11 at 2pm EST we'll be partnering with Plasmatreat, a developer of surface treatment systems, to present a webinar hosted by Plastics Technology magazine. ...
BTG Labs' CEO and Lead Scientist, Dr. Giles Dillingham and Research and Development Chemist, Brooke Campbell recently collaborated with NASA scientists and researchers from the ...
When a material begins its journey through a manufacturing process it becomes crucial to know and control everything that happens to that material as it makes its way down the ...
Ever wonder what a hungry BTG Process Engineer is pondering while preparing the turkey for the feast of gratitude to be shared around the Thanksgiving table? The sharp minds at ...
What is a Critical Control Point? A Critical Control Point (CCP) is any point in the manufacturing process where the surface condition of a material has the opportunity to ...
This article was co-written by Elizabeth Kidd, BTG Labs' Custom Applications Scientist and Research and Development Chemist. Coating and adhesive bonding are extremely common ...
We've collaborated once again with Composites World for a webinar elucidating a surface prep tool that's widely used and seldom understood. Watch the video of the webinar ...
Autumnal vibes have landed at BTG Labs and along with football-watching, apple-picking, Halloween costume-planning we have an array of opportunities for you to interact with us ...
In the diverse and ever-growing world of medical devices, particularly those involving polymeric tubing, it is always crucial, and not always easy, to test and definitively ...
Partnering with Plastics Technology, BTG Labs held a webinar about a topic that’s attracting a lot of attention.
Surface Preparation in Manufacturing In manufacturing there exist critical surface preparation process requirements to ensure products are safe and reliable. There are some legacy ...