Many R&D teams face frustrating delays when coating process development happens in silos — formulation in the lab, pilot testing elsewhere, scale-up as a separate phase. Each handoff creates bottlenecks, requiring meetings, approvals, and costly iterations between client labs and production facilities. This traditional approach can stretch development timelines from weeks to months — even as much as a year — especially when corporate bureaucracy and red tape slow the iteration process.
National Polymer’s integrated coating process development eliminates these delays by combining custom formulation with roll-to-roll pilot coating capabilities under one roof. This streamlined approach compresses development timelines while ensuring your coating performs exactly as intended at production scale. When formulation and pilot testing happen simultaneously, teams can make real-time adjustments that would otherwise require multiple project phases. Let’s take a closer look.
The Time-to-Market Challenge in Traditional Coating Development
The conventional approach to coating process development creates inherent inefficiencies. R&D teams typically develop formulations on the benchtop using small-scale testing methods, then hand off their work to pilot facilities or production teams for scale-up trials. This sequential process often reveals a disconnect between benchtop success and production reality.
Corporate structures compound these delays through bureaucratic iteration cycles. When issues arise during pilot testing, teams must navigate approval processes, schedule meetings, and coordinate multiple departments before making formulation adjustments. Each back-and-forth cycle between the client lab and testing facilities extends timelines significantly, especially in large organizations where every change requires documentation and approval.
Additionally, many companies face internal resistance to using external resources, with teams reluctant to acknowledge they need specialized expertise. This creates artificial barriers that slow decision-making and prevent teams from leveraging the most efficient development approaches available.
National Polymer’s Integrated Approach: Real-Time Optimization
National Polymer’s integrated coating process development addresses these bottlenecks by conducting formulation and roll-to-roll pilot testing simultaneously. Rather than waiting for lab results to inform pilot trials, the team can make formulation iterations and test them on production-scale equipment the same day.
This real-time optimization capability proves particularly valuable when initial formulations prove unworkable or unsuitable for coating on actual equipment. For example, a recent cellulose-based cast product required simultaneous adjustments to both the formulation chemistry and the customer’s thickness expectations. The original material was incompatible with roll-to-roll coating processes, requiring changes to concentration, viscosity, and component selection while also adjusting the final product specifications to match what was practically achievable on production equipment.
The integrated approach works because formulation and equipment expertise operate under the same roof. When coating trials reveal issues with drying characteristics, solvent blends, or viscosity parameters, chemists can immediately adjust the formulation and retest without external coordination delays. This collaborative, on-site methodology allows teams to work side by side, where they’re all seeing exactly the same thing in real time.
Roll-to-Roll Equipment Adaptation: Custom Solutions for Unique Challenges
National Polymer’s roll-to-roll pilot coating capabilities extend beyond standard equipment configurations. The team regularly modifies existing machines for processes that are either unique or don’t yet exist, creating custom solutions for specific applications. Think of this equipment adaptation capability like modifying a stock car for racing — starting with proven base equipment and customizing it for specific performance requirements.
Recent projects demonstrate this flexibility in action. For example, a slurry-coated open mesh application initially seemed impossible to the client, who remained skeptical about ever coating their material successfully. Through benchtop evaluation followed by custom equipment modifications, including specially designed scraper bars and manual configurations, the team proved the concept worked. The success was so convincing that the client immediately moved to wider equipment trials and is now seeking commercial production partners.
The equipment modification process happens rapidly through a combination of machining, 3D printing, and custom fabrication. Rather than waiting months or years for specialized equipment, the team can develop and test custom components in weeks. This rapid prototyping capability allows for immediate concept validation before investing in permanent equipment modifications.
Roll-to-roll capabilities accommodate any flexible product that can be unwound and rewound, with custom additions including dip tanks, saturation tanks, coagulation tanks, and specialized drying systems. This flexibility enables coating process development for applications ranging from battery membranes to sustainable packaging materials.
Three-Step Process: From Concept to Scale-Up Ready
National Polymer’s integrated approach follows a structured three-step methodology that ensures efficient progression from concept to production readiness. The first phase serves as pure experimentation, with real-time adjustments to viscosity, solids concentration, drying parameters, and coating methods. This experimental phase determines feasibility and identifies the primary variables requiring optimization.
The second stage focuses on validation, incorporating customer feedback and process refinements developed during initial trials. Teams use insights from the first trial to make targeted adjustments, either through on-site formulation changes or customer-supplied modifications. This validation phase confirms that the optimized approach meets performance requirements under controlled conditions.
The third step provides scale-up verification, ensuring the process translates successfully to semi-production or full production environments. By this point, the formulation and process parameters are well-established, and the focus shifts to confirming reproducibility and quality consistency at higher volumes. Each iteration builds directly on previous results without requiring external coordination or approval cycles between phases.
Streamline Coating Process Development With National Polymer
Traditional coating development approaches require teams to navigate corporate bureaucracy, coordinate multiple vendors, and manage sequential handoffs that unnecessarily extend timelines. National Polymer’s integrated coating process development eliminates these inefficiencies by combining formulation expertise with roll-to-roll pilot capabilities under one roof.
When teams can rely on specialized expertise and work collaboratively on-site, development timelines compress dramatically. The cost-effectiveness of this approach often surprises customers who discover that outsourced integrated development costs less than internal sequential development when all expenses are accurately calculated. Teams save money by avoiding equipment investments, reducing personnel requirements, and eliminating the extended timelines that delay revenue generation.
Ready to eliminate development bottlenecks and accelerate your coating process development? Contact our team today to discuss how integrated formulation and roll-to-roll pilot coating can compress your timeline while ensuring production-ready results.
