Service

At any time you have the possibility to reach a competent contact person for your request. Well-founded consultations on your current topics, trends or changed circumstances (such as new coating requirements or price increases for precious metals used) are thus possible at short notice and in a targeted manner. For this purpose, our technical sales team will be happy to assist you with their specialist and background knowledge, which has grown over many decades.

Of course, we will clarify specific details for a possible process optimization with possibilities from our product portfolio in advance. Once the qualitative and technical requirements have been clarified, we will discuss the general economic conditions with you - we will be happy to prepare a transparent profitability calculation tailored to your needs. Based on the totality of information, you should be able to make a well-founded decision for or against our solution and we can take the next step together.

Of course, we always ensure that our products are easy to use in order to achieve the desired result quickly. Nevertheless, your process landscape may have characteristics that require fine-tuning in order to exploit the full potential of our products. Individual ideas on your part may also require a process adjustment that deviates from the standard.

Therefore, you never decide for just one product or process from Umicore, you decide for us. This also means that our long-standing laboratory and service technicians will work with you to set up the process optimally.

We have all the prerequisites to provide you with comprehensive support on your way to practical process conversion. To this end, laboratories and facilities are available to you at various locations worldwide.

• From feasibility analyses
• to sample processing
• to scaling up to production scale
• and the search for an alternative route

At our headquarters in Schwäbisch Gmünd, we operate a state-of-the-art test center. This allows us to test the electrolytes under different, real production conditions. This helps us to take the step from the test tube to the large electrolyte tank for a new development or to find explicit solutions for your special challenges. In this way, we quickly get closer to our common goal, the perfect surface for your individual product.

In order to support our customers in their process assurance, we analyze their electrolyte samples for a usually wide range of parameters. This is done at defined intervals, but also when there is a need for optimization of the electrolyte. The results of the analytical tests are then used by our product laboratories as a basis for developing corrective proposals or further measures. 

Our highly qualified personnel comprehensively examine almost 10,000 samples of electrolytes every year - for example, for the target contents of metals and additives as well as impurities. An extensive range of equipment with the most sensitive sensor technology allows us to obtain fast and error-free measurement results. 

We are known and successful worldwide through our branded products AURUNA®, ARGUNA®, RHODUNA®, MIRALLOY®, to name only the most important trademarks of our product portfolio. Based on the precious metal competence built up over many years, new products or customer-specific modifications have been developed to meet the increasing demands of the industry.

In addition, economic or environmental reasons are the impulse to develop new innovative products. For this reason, we invest about 10% of our sales annually in research and development. The laboratory equipment as well as the employee capacity or competence are success-relevant influencing factors, which are continuously adapted to the requirements.

Numerous patents are proof of this innovative strength and confirm our important role in the research field of surface coating. This is ensured almost daily by our 50 highly qualified and creative specialists. In this way, we succeed in continuously developing our products and adapting them to the current market conditions or changing the status quo with new achievements.

Our success is based on our distinctive expertise, which we are happy to share with you. We train your employees - tailored to your needs. For this purpose, we use our in-house training center or offer external Umicore seminars, for example at the Center for Surface Technology Schwäbisch Gmünd (Z.O.G.).

Of course, training by our experts is always part of our service after the successful go-live of our processes. Independent process management is now no longer a problem for your team.

At some locations we also offer the possibility to coat your products directly. Here you can benefit from our know-how as an electrolyte manufacturer. Particularly in the case of highly sensitive coatings in the technical sector, our experience, product knowledge and modern process landscapes enable outstanding coating quality - confirmed in every batch by our constant quality management.

Regardless of whether classic coating in rack or barrel operation or high-speed coating on the assembly line. Individual coating thickness distribution, partial coating, multiple coatings, etc. - use our most modern production standards for your small series with highest demands.