It can take a lot of innovation to develop even the smallest products.
One of the greatest joys of learning about the wide world of
manufacturing is finding out that for any product, there are engineers
somewhere dedicating their concentrated efforts to making it better, less
expensive or easier to use. This high-tech is a great example of
that: it delivers a solution to a niche problem.
It’s no surprise it comes from 3M, one of the most innovative
companies in the world: in 2017, the company spent about 6% of total revenue on
research and development, compared to an average of 2.3% among 190 other industrial
companies. The company is consistently ranked just behind Apple and Google in
Booz & Company’s list of the world’s most innovative companies. For good
reason: one of the company’s most popular products, masking tape, was invented
when a 3M automotive sandpaper salesman watched workers struggle to apply
two-tone paint jobs cleanly, and he experimented with the sandpaper’s backing
and adhesive components to invent the ubiquitous roll of masking tape.
Watch this video to learn about another interesting product.
The problems this product tackles are edge protection,
packaging and strapping. Whether you’re a manufacturer shipping product to an
end customer or to another operation, or receiving materials from a supplier,
it’s important how those materials are packaged. You can sink a lot of time and
effort into carefully finishing, deburring and polishing an edge, and then give
it to a shipping company who couldn’t care less what happens to it.
8899 HP clean removal strapping tape is a tensilized
polypropylene product, commercially available in the USA. The tape is ideal for
strapping and bundling in the metal industry. It’s a clean removal product, so
you can use it for edge protection and remove it without adhesive residue. The
tape has a tensile strength of 170 pounds per inch, as well as abrasion and
nick resistance, so if you were to cut it or abrade it, the tensilized polymers
in it would hold, preventing it from ripping.
Whether you’re bundling rod or tube or packaging consumer
goods for shipping, this product is designed to leave no gummy or tacky
residue, while providing enough strength to hold tight. The tape should be
peeled off, not cut.
Despite it’s humble stature as a simple roll of tape, 8899HP
spent several years of development in the 3M lab to develop the clean removal adhesive
to adhere to different substrates without leaving residue.
For more information on 3M’s history of innovation, check out their
website.
