Working in various manufacturing and repair environments typically means working with a variety of adhesives. More often than not, the vast majority of everyday jobs and duties can be covered using the generic adhesives available from any number of suppliers. Which is precisely why for most, the idea of working with 3M preferred tape converters to obtain custom adhesive products seems somewhat unnecessary.
After all, if you are managing to get the job done just fine as it is, why fix what isn’t broken?
The answer…well, who’s to say that something has to be broken in order to be improved significantly?
Contrary to popular belief, there are in fact enormous and important differences between generic adhesives and bespoke adhesive products. Nevertheless, it’s not until you give them a try for yourself that you begin to realise just how beneficial for business they can be. Rest assured however – sticking with generic adhesives rather than considering custom alternatives could mean selling your business short.
Or at least, stunting its performance and making things more difficult than they need to be.
But what is it about generic adhesives that makes them vastly inferior to the custom variety in most manufacturing and repair settings?
One Size Doesn’t Fit All
First and foremost, it’s important to acknowledge the fact that one size most certainly does not fit all. Never has, never will. Despite the various claims made by the manufacturers of various generic adhesives, there is no such thing as an adhesive product that works flawlessly with all materials. While various types of universal adhesives may get the job done to a certain extent, it is inevitable that they are going to do a better job with certain materials than others. For example, a universal adhesive may be great for joining plastics, but may offer know when nearly the same kind of reliability or strength when joining metals.
If you are required to join a variety of different materials in your own manufacturing setting, it’s definitely worth considering individual adhesives for each respective job. When you think about it, you are still going to need the same quantity of adhesive as you would had you chosen to go with these apparent ‘universal’ products. It’s just that when you choose an adhesive in direct accordance with its intended purpose, you are guaranteed better results every time. Particularly if you choose a custom adhesive product, designed and manufactured specifically for this exact purpose.
All or Nothing
Another problem with many generic adhesive products is the way in which they are something of an ‘all or nothing’ affair. You open the container or tube, use the adhesive as required, replace the cap and store it away. Only to come back a short time later and find that the rest of the adhesive has hardened and is completely useless to you. Which is, suffice to say, a complete waste of money for your business.
One of the benefits of custom adhesive products is the way in which they can be tailored to suit all requirements across the board. Which also means their capacity to be used on more than one occasion, without hardening and being thrown in the trash. Chances are that when you think about it, quite a lot of the generic adhesives you buy over the course of every use go to waste. So even if you are concerned about the costs of industrial adhesive products, you could stand to make considerable savings long-term.
Ease of Use
Last but not least, the one thing that can be said for every generic adhesive you use is that it definitely wasn’t designed for your business and your specific application. Which in turn means that you cannot realistically expect it to deliver flawless results without fail. Not to mention, the fastest, easiest and most reliable application process.
By contrast, switching to bespoke adhesive products means getting the job done as quickly, and easily and efficiently as it is physically possible to do it. Which in turn means accelerating production speeds, improving overall efficiency and optimising the way you do business. Once again, these are the kinds of benefits that tend to augment initial purchase costs many times over. Plus, given the fact that most reputable adhesive manufacturers these days are happy to provide initial samples, there really is very little to lose by giving things a try and finding out for yourself.
