Infinity Surface Cleaning Program offers data-driven approach to preparing surfaces for bonding, adhesion and coating.
SCOTT FRANCIS , Editor-In-Chief, Products Finishing (Published
Innovation comes in many forms and is not always based on a new product or technology, but instead on collaboration. Recently Hubbard-Hall (Waterbury, Conn.) and Brighton Science (Cincinnati, Ohio) announced such a partnership aimed at helping Hubbard-Hall expand its services and accelerate the speed at which customers can innovate. The two companies’ initiative, known as the Infinity Surface Cleaning Intelligence Program, combines Brighton Science’s technologies and materials science knowledge with Hubbard-Hall’s chemistry and cleaning knowledge.
The goal of the Infinity Surface Cleaning Intelligence Program is to solve, prevent, and control the variables and risks manufactures face when preparing surfaces for bonding and adhesion. The program is designed to ensure that critical cleaning processes are predictable, data-driven, and enable innovation to match customers’ ever-changing surface cleanliness needs.
“We want to help our customers use less chemistry,” says Molly Kellogg, Hubbard-Hall chairman, president and CEO. “By partnering with Brighton Science, we can use their technology to validate cleanliness and help our customers achieve better control and predictability around cleaning. The goal is to finally bring scientific control to high-value cleaning operations.”
Brighton Science designs high-precision instruments that bring unprecedented visibility to surfaces. The company’s flagship solution is a surface inspection device that allows manufacturers to rapidly quantify the quality of material surfaces after cleaning processes and before applications such as bonding, coating, sealing, painting or printing. The Surface analyst is available in handheld and automated designs and the company also offers custom solutions. Andrew Reeher, Chief Executive Officer at Brighton Science, explains how the company is partnering its expertise with Hubbard-Hall:
There are two versions of the program. The first is the Infinity Brighton Specification Package, a proactive solution meant for those who have yet to invest in a cleaning line. Brighton Science provides a set of cleaning specification parameters to be measured by its surface analyst technologies. With those parameters defined, customers have access to material science Ph.D.-level consultants to solve, prevent and control critical surface cleaning challenges, improve value engineering and optimize the cleaning process.
The second program version is the Infinity Optimizer Package, which focuses on optimizing and innovating an existing cleaning process through consultations with Hubbard-Hall and Brighton Science experts. The conversations center around value engineering and how it can positively affect a cleaning process and establish process specifications.
“Since our technology can estimate the surface energy of the part after cleaning, advisors from Hubbard-Hall are able to use our measurement system to demonstrate the efficacy of their solution,” Reeher says, “Hubbard-Hall can demonstrate the business fit and benefits, while our technology also creates ways for customers to control the performance of a more challenging process once they are in production.”