Policy-oriented green environmental protection is imminent How to lay out the automotive coatings industry

With the continuous upgrading of China'
market, cars are becoming a necessity for families. Especially in 2016, according to data released by the Passenger Union, as of June 30, 2016, a total of 11.0423 million passenger cars were sold nationwide, better than in the same period in history.
government's policy on energy conservation and emission reduction has become clearer, leading to a faster transition for more and more parts companies. Especially in the coatings industry, it is important to weigh the relationship between manufacturing costs and environmental protection. As one of the global paint industry giants, Asda Coatings has been deeply ploughing automotive body paint and insulation paint, and the annual release of color trend forecasts has become an important way for various industries to understand market preferences. To this end, China Coatings Onlinereporters take advantage of as an opportunity to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Asda, an exclusive interview with Steven Markevich, Executive Vice President of Asda Coatings Systems and President of Global Transportation Coatings, to discuss the current changes in the coatings industry.
Astor Coatings Systems Executive Vice President and President of Global Transportation Coatings Steven Markevich
China Coatings OnlineReporter: As one of the giants of automotive coatings, what are the innovative processes for our eco-friendly paints?
Markevich: First of all, I want to highlight water-based paints and our combined coating technology (Harmornized Coating TechnologiesTM, HCT) in terms of market trends. At present, the Chinese market environmental pressure is very large, Chinese coatings in the rapid trend towards water-based, which is the main reason why we have introduced the combined coating technology. Asda's all-in-one coating technology consists of three process technologies, the first of which is the eco-concept-free coating process, which we have provided to a number of European host plants, the important feature of which is the coating process using a small number of primers. The second is the "three-coat-one-baked" water-like coating system, which has already won a very large response in the market, and we will further increase investment in flash drying technology, to ensure that in drying, in the flash drying with less energy, to ensure that energy-saving and environmentally friendly performance is more prominent. The third is the "two-coat-one-bak" system. Combined coating technology is a combination of technologies. Whether it's a combined coating technology platform or the three technologies it covers, the
's main goals are: first, to reduce the number of coatings, thereby saving the use of coatings, and to make the process more fluid, shorter cycles, both of which can be quick-drying, flash-drying technology innovations to make the spraying or coating process more energy-efficient. Just now in the press conference also introduced the productivity continues to promote the coating process, productivity is also constantly improved, on the one hand, we can ensure that new technologies are still implemented, and even achieve better appearance, color more colorful, while making VOC emissions greatly reduced, and quickly promote customers in equipment, coating process energy-saving process.
China Coatings Online

Reporter: Is there a new product for Asda's motor insulation in new energy vehicles? What does it do?
Markevich: In new energy vehicles, whether the exterior or interior of the car, is basically the same, the technology is also consistent. However, in the electric vehicle this piece of driving momentum is different from the traditional car driving momentum, it is the motor start, the motor inside to use a special insulation material, is we provide, but also water-based materials, and this material is functional materials, mainly play a long-term corrosion resistance, insulation effect.
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Reporter: We see today that Asda has its own production position in China's high-end cars, and many paint companies are increasing the production capacity of automotive paint, Asda in the face of these competitors how to strengthen the market? What does Asda think of the current market situation in china's automotive paint sector?
Markevich: As For Asstay, we serve a lot of customers, like we have very good finishes like Sbie Express, and the quality is very good. In this part of the body, we have our own very leading technology and clear customer positioning to meet a variety of needs. We are also looking at the larger domestic market to serve them. For example, the tinkering paint market, we have high-end market, there is also the mainstream market, both markets Asda is serving it.
Are pleased to be in the Chinese market and keep us growing very well, and we are aware of this "new normal" of economic growth in China, which will not always be double-digit growth, and may be growing at 6 or 7 per cent, but it is still a very large market. We also know that deep localization is the only way, we also have a great investment in the strategy of deep localization. As you should know, we are building our own research and development center in China, located in the Asia-Pacific Technology Research and Development Center of Yihang, at a cost of 30 million U.S. dollars, the purpose is to hear the needs of local market customers, understand customer needs, the development of suitable products for customers in the local market, so that only suitable for the local market will be better competitive. At the same time production, we Jiading water-based paint factory is to meet the needs of the local market to do, this depth of localization is what we are doing.
In addition to research and development localization, in manufacturing, we invested in products to rapidly shorten the entire supply chain, to meet customer needs locally, in addition to our manufacturing plants also use the most advanced technology, our water-based paint factory in Jiading using automated closed-circuit cycle systems, so that we have the highest efficiency, the lowest VOC emissions, the use of the world's most advanced technology.
China Coatings Online

Reporter: The Chinese government has introduced a lot of policies to force paint companies to develop to environmental protection, but because of the financial and technical difficulties in the real sense of environmental protection. What is the relationship between business and the green side for Asda? How effective has Asda been in green manufacturing?
Markevich: We have a very strong team in China that is close to the market and close to our customers, with the aim of serving our customers efficiently and across the market. We attach great importance to the environment, the company's experts as the permanent director of the Paint Association and the permanent member of the Committee of Experts, or members of the Environmental Advisory Committee, so any government requirements for the environment we will be truly reflected in the company, so that the company's management to get timely information, for any policy issued in China, is very fast, very timely reflected in the company's decision-making level. China put forward the standard requirements of 420VOC per litre, our company's technical department, product department and customers work together to make our overall VOC has a substantial decline, the vast majority of our products can be less than 420 grams per liter.
About the development of green manufacturing, our new plant equipment is the most energy-efficient model, such as the motor is the use of a four-volt motor control, only when the operation is started, not when the operation is into a state of energy saving, all and environmentally related, whether it is gas emissions, or wastewater discharge, not only to meet the standards, are the maximum internal circulation. We not only made the layout of green manufacturing for the new plant, the old factory has also been modified, all the drains have taken the VOC whole process of fluorine absorption, defluorine, the whole system is at a low level of emissions, all meet the standards. As many media friends know, we also publish sustainability reports that contain a lot of examples of green manufacturing and sustainable production.
China Coatings Online

Reporter: China's car market into a low-growth trend, Asda's future automotive business in China's main growth points in what areas?
Steven Markevich: Although the entire Chinese car market is now called the new normal, not double-digit growth rate, but at 6.8%, or 6.7%, but because our Chinese market is particularly large, for 2,40 The size of the market of 6.8 per cent or 6.7 per cent is still a very large number, which is very exciting, because even for the world car market, 6.8 per cent growth is a very large number. We are in a very stable and mature market for international automotive customers and are now focusing on developing our own brand customers in China, including those such as Chang'an, Geely, Chery and BYD, who are very important to us, and we are focusing on that. In addition to our large customers, we will also look at each car paint where there can also be deep excavation, such as the interior of the car, we will join the automotive factory's first-class suppliers, including some international partners, together in China research and development and application, this is our development direction, the Chinese market in-depth cultivation.
China Coatings Online

Reporter: Asda has three coating processes, in the next three to five years we have a new research and development direction in automotive coatings?
Markevich: Our eco-concept coating system was developed in conjunction with the entire plant at the beginning of its development. We've now upgraded it further to another version that can be adapted to any other plant, similar to this system, which will be more adaptable and will bring more benefits to other plants. Another can "flash dry" at room temperature 3 coating 1 coating system, not only bring energy savings, in this process, pre-spray coating and design can be very good communication, but also make the overall performance is greatly enhanced. In addition, the oven in the reduction of baking temperature, energy saving, these together, are in the next few years to focus on the development, how to reduce baking energy, how to cooperate with the development of new energy vehicles, so that our paint itself can meet a variety of different metal materials coating requirements. In addition to the appearance can do particularly well, which is also very important, so can swim through the force to do relatively high.
we've just launched a new line of products in the melting machine that offer particularly good corner protection. We know that car corrosion often starts from the corner of the corner, and if this part is well protected by the edge, the car's corrosion resistance is increased. In addition, all heavy metals in the electromelt, such as lead, etc. can be excluded, there is no heavy metal coating. Very good crosslinking and very high performance without heavy metals.
, we also use big data in research and development. Now, there are many customers in the market car are using our products, we will collect our products in the market after five years, ten years after the performance, where more easily scratched, where easy to appear corrosion points, after collection, you can know which parts of the car need us to consider, so that we can work with the host plant cross-border research, including how to solve the coating problem on different materials, can be more effective and more targeted.
China Coatings Online

Reporter: In April, Asda released a report on car color trends. How many colors are there in Asda's paint color library?
Markevich: Astro is a leader not only in color development, but also in color research and color creation. We first published the Global Automotive Color Prevalence Report in 1953, which became a reference for automakers to judge consumer design and color preferences. Asda color experts and color engineers, and our customers, color prediction organizations, as well as the global color organizations have a very close cooperation, we closely follow the market, from the consumer market, from the electronic components market, consumer electronics market, the overall direction of customer demand, like the direction, is which direction to develop. When our experts have made their predictions, we will go back to Europe, North America, popular color experts to communicate, discuss, and finally our predictions and global experts are consistent, we have 4 million colors around the world color database. In addition, we also released a new system, is a nano-scale production system, features to make up for the existing paint capacity shortage, can make high-color red color, dark color black color, can make the color deeper and more colorful. It should be said that color itself is a science, but also with the personal impact of consumers have a lot to do with, so how can we predict consumer trends in advance, can be combined with our predictions to achieve very good results.
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