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01/01/2011
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Twelve years ago, the Dow Chemical Company formed Dow Automotive as its first 'business within a business'. Ian Adcock recently caught up with president Steve Henderson to discover what the company can offer today's automotive industry
 Just as for every other company, the industrial collapse of the global motor industry hit Dow Automotive hard. However, it gave its then newly appointed president Steve Henderson the opportunity to reshape the business to focus on its core attributes. "During the downturn, we restructured the business, getting rid of certain parts of it, so we were left with a smaller, but much more meaningful portfolio, aligned to the motor industry.
"We're now in three specific areas and, when you get to a certain size, you need to start leveraging the organisation to maximise those specialities, which are: powertrain emissions, adhesives and what we call performance solutions from the traditional Dow assets of polymers, elastomers, fluids, etc. We're back to being specialists and a lot more agile."
Henderson believes there are three ways Dow can help its customers to reduce costs, solve technology problems – which, he says, is "very critical" to an innovation business like Dow – and finally, and most unusually, help OEMs and suppliers sell more of their products. "The first two are something we've done over a long period of time, but looking at ways to help OEMs sell more products is kind of a new activity for us. Generally, what we've done is more marketing. There are very specific reasons why we buy cars and we've translated those back through what Dow is offering."
Dow is focusing on four specific areas of vehicle development, he explains: "For a start, emissions will continue to be more regulated going forward and, whilst energy efficiency has a number of different aspects to it, the approach we're taking is by enabling mass reduction. Then there is safety. In the past, safety improvements were about increasing vehicle mass and that affects efficiency, and then there is quality appeal. Cars are getting smaller, but that doesn't mean people want vehicles that are decontented or stripped out.
"We have a very extensive sales and marketing organisation, which resides at our customers, so we have an intense knowledge of their operations. We feel their pain and bring that back into our business to develop solutions and simplify their manufacturing processes."
Success in the Le Mans 24 hour race has helped to promote Dow's AERIFY diesel particulate filters, which, he says, improve emissions without compromising efficiency. Currently, Dow is targeting medium- and heavy-truck applications that are coming under intense pressure from Euro 6 and Tier 4 legislation. According to Henderson, the system's unique structure significantly reduces back pressure, thereby improving efficiency.
"That allows the OEM to have a larger filter, with a significantly lower back pressure, or maintain the same back pressure and go to a significantly smaller filter. And that can help with packaging and cost, because it uses fewer precious metals. We're heading towards passenger cars, but the first step for the value proposition is better suited for medium and heavy duty applications."
He admits to working with partners on petrol particulate filters where the same characteristics of back pressure improvements and robustness with very high porosity make AERIFY attractive to GDI engines and could be available as early as 2013-14.
For Henderson, "materials science, the intersection of chemistry with automotive, is going to be one of the biggest influences on the industry going forward", which explains why Dow is developing Thermal Energy Storage (TES) systems that, following the delivery of the first prototypes to OEMs, are predicted to come to market in 2016.
"Dow has developed systems that are 'heat batteries', using phase change materials that alternate from liquid to solid as heat is put in and out of them by taking waste heat from the engine and storing it, allowing the OEM to use it in any number of applications. Right now, we're targeting 24 hour heat retention that could be used in a number of ways – eg, to warm up the emissions system to operate more efficiently and faster with quicker light-off, which can then reduce the size of the system and the amount of precious metals," explains Henderson, adding: "They could be used to heat the passenger compartment for electric vehicles or hybrids or engine oil."
With the drive to reduce weight, Henderson rightly sees enormous potential, as manufacturers seek more ways of combining often incompatible lightweight materials. "Dow is the world leader in structural adhesives, bonding metal to metal, so that reduces welds and carbon footprint and down gauges steels for lower body-in-white mass.
Bonding allows a material mix: plastics, magnesium, carbon fibre, steel, aluminium can all be combined. And, in terms of mass, anywhere between 2 and 10 Kilos can be saved, just by down gauging materials and, potentially, avoiding costly high strength steels, of which there's a limited amount.
"Multi material bodies have got to happen [witness the Audi quattro Concept seen at Paris – IA] and we believe that adhesives will be the new welding, the enabler. We plan on extending our leadership in adhesives with the likes of Betamate Lesa and Betamate 2K." Henderson refers to these as "crash durable adhesives" that can be used to tune the deformation of crash structures by varying the amount of adhesives applied, helping to reduce vehicle mass, while maintaining impact performance. "You can use structural adhesives to stiffen the body to help with noise, vibration and harshness and dynamics. To reduce body-in-white by 50-60 Kilos requires new design technologies and we can enable that." While he concedes that bonding will never be as fast as welding for mass production, he predicts that within the next couple of years curing times will be drastically reduced, eliminating the need for mechanical fixings.
The challenge of engineering small cars to meet stricter occupant safety legislation is one that Henderson believes Dow can help OEMs meet, especially with products like Impaxx energy absorbing foam. Already used to help protect NASCAR race drivers, it's particularly applicable in headliners and doors for hip and side impact protection, as well as 'A' pillars. "It's very light and could save 20-25% in an 'A' post, which means it can be made much slimmer for increased field of vision whilst still meeting HIC ratings and performance," he states.
The key factor is aligning the structural cells in the line of fire, so they compress in a very controlled manner. As well as being recyclable, Dow is exploring using Impaxx in bumper structures as well.
As new generations of downsized cars emerge, buyers are demanding the same levels of sophistication found in traditionally larger, more sophisticated products from which they have come. Dow, Henderson explains, can do the full range of sound analysis and leakage in its dedicated semi-anechoic chamber, targeting specific areas in the vehicle. "We look at the frequency of the body to target acoustic treatments in specific areas, rather than treating the whole body," he says, adding that this is another example of applying chemistry, rather than mechanical solutions, to achieve the optimum results. Are there other automotive applications beyond structural bonding and foams Dow is considering? Looking to the future, Dow is researching the feasibility of bonding seat frames, an application Henderson describes as interesting. "Beyond that, if it needs to come apart, then structural adhesives might not be the answer."
Steve Henderson was appointed president of Dow Automotive Systems in 2009 and is responsible for Dow Automotive Systems' global profit and loss, business strategy and organisational health. He is based in Tokyo, Japan.
Most recently, he served as president of the Americas, where he led the strategic oversight of all Dow Automotive Systems products, marketing and sales activities in North and South America. He has also held a variety of leadership positions at Dow Automotive Systems, including president, Diversified Products; vice president, New Business Development and Strategic Marketing; and vice president of Glass and Plastic Bonding.
Henderson joined Dow Automotive Systems from General Motors in 1987 as an associate engineer. He has a BA in Organisational Administration and an MA in Business Administration. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), Sales and Marketing Executives (SME), Adhesives Sealants Council (ASC) and Beta Gamma Sigma. Henderson is 50 and married, with two children.
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Author
Ian Adcock
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