The department was born from the fusion of two professional areas which have been working so far in communicating but not related areas, namely that of pure research on the development and refinement of compounds and materials and the technical one connected to the technical management of products. One of the most innovative aspects of this operation is to be found in the role attributed to the new figure of the Product Manager. It is in fact a technical figure dedicated to the analysis of customer requests and, in collaboration with the other professional company figures, to the coordination of technical proposals, including both the compound aspects and those concerning industrialization, both those relating to quality in its broader perspective.
The Technical Center supports the customer in product engineering, from the feasibility analysis to co-design, from the prototype phase to industrialization. The design activities of the technical center can be supported by finite element analysis (FEA), in order to identify and solve potential or actual performance problems since from the design phase. Over 1000 projects are put in place every year with an average of 1.2 products actually launched per day, of which 60% are for the rubber sector, 30% for silicone, 10% for plastic. The research and development of materials guarantee continuous updates and technological-scientific developments, to translate the innovations acquired in the various sectors into operations.
Three internal laboratories, two in Italy (one dedicated exclusively to silicone materials) and one in Turkey, develop innovative solutions able to meet the ever-growing market needs in terms of product performance and customer specifications. Through close collaborations with the most important raw material suppliers, with universities and specialized laboratories in the sector, Oldrati R&D is able to experiment and create compounds with innovative materials (e.g. nanocharges, shape memory materials and others).
