November 25th, 2021
Best practices award highlights Axalta's innovation and sustainable coatings designed to meet the evolving needs of OEMs.
Axalta was recently named the 2021 Global Commercial Vehicle Coatings Company of the Year by Frost & Sullivan. The annual Best Practices award recognizes Axalta for developing innovative coatings that address OEMs' evolving needs in designing lighter-weight vehicles and exterior components. It also recognizes its leadership in innovation and the commercialization of highly efficient coating solutions.
"Every day, we strive to build deeper relationships with our customers by listening to their needs, understanding their business and delivering world-class products and services that help them meet cost, quality, sustainability and cycle time targets," said Joseph Wood, VP, global commercial vehicle coatings at Axalta. "We're honoured to be recognized for our innovation, product excellence and customer focus."
As part of its analysis, Frost & Sullivan highlighted Axalta's Imron and Rival coating solutions, which save time and energy while improving productivity by reducing the number of steps in the application process. The new basecoat products are unique because they can be applied directly on plastic substrates without an adhesion promoter, reducing the coating application process from the conventional three steps to two steps.
The Imron Elite ColorPlus basecoat is a premium basecoat system explicitly designed for recreational vehicles' new and complicated paint schemes. ColorPlus uses 30 percent less mate-rial and reduces cycle time by 30 percent while still delivering a superior finish. Imron 2K high durability clearcoat, released in September 2020 for customers in Europe, stands out from its competitors in the region. The clear coat is designed to adhere to the stringent volatile organic compound (VOC) limits mandated in European countries while retaining its durability and gloss after multiple washing cycles.
Rival DTM Topcoat RV901 and RV902 are easy-to-apply, direct-to-metal (DTM) coatings for customers that reduce overall painting costs and perform well in non-corrosive to mildly corrosive environments. In addition, customers greatly value the product's single-step application ability using conventional activators, eliminating the need to create an additional inventory of new activators.