Component Validation
Inside Henkel's proving ground for automotive component and vehicle body surface treatment
In Madison Heights, Michigan, Henkel's Surface Treatment Experience Center and BONDERITE Experience Center lets OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers validate pretreatment and Ecoat processes at production scale, cutting the guesswork, and the downtime, out of qualifying new components before they reach the line.
On the shop floor, validating a new pretreatment process still usually means shrinking the part to fit the lab. A bracket, a housing, a plate destined for a full-scale production line gets cut down to a size a bench top system can handle, tested in miniature, then scaled up on assumption. Henkel's Surface Treatment Experience Center (STEC) in Madison Heights, Michigan, was built to remove that compromise from the manufacturing process.
The center sits alongside Henkel's Bonderite Experience Centre (BEC) on the same campus, and the two are deliberately distinct. Where the Bonderite center is tuned to the panel and body shop, mimicking the spray and immersion layouts of OEM paint lines, the Surface Treatment Experience Center is built around the far less standardized world of components. David George, Surface Treatment Technical Manager at Henkel Adhesive Technologies, explained the split.
"The Surface Treatment Experience Center (STEC) is set up with automotive components customers in mind. These customers’ pretreatment system layouts can vary significantly. The STEC is all immersion tanks, no spray, and are much larger than the BEC to accommodate customer parts."
Curran Muñiz, Lead Application Engineer for Surface Treatment, Cleaners and Lubricants in Automotive Components in North America framed the center's purpose in terms of scale rather than layout. "The Surface Treatment Experience Center is a full pretreatment process line that is designed with the customer in mind. We can process large parts through any pretreatment system and Ecoat them in one line and then go straight into a cure oven."
Because many of the chemical bath parameters are changed during each processing scenario, it is not practical to perform these trials at the customer facility
What a customer engagement actually looks like
Engagement at the center rarely follows a single script. Muñiz described a spectrum running from pure education through to full production-scale validation. "Some customers come for education and training on Henkel's latest surface treatment technologies. Others come to observe their parts run on the line to mimic their current or future pretreatment process." The payoff, she argued, is confidence rather than just data. "This process can eliminate the need for a line trial or give the customer confidence in proceeding with a line trial or process change."
George described a similar arc from problem definition to validated result. "Initially, there are discussions centring on what the goal or issue is, and what needs to be accomplished. Next, Henkel will typically design one or more matrices to process the samples through several pretreatment scenarios." The reason this cannot simply be replicated on a customer's own line, he said, comes down to the sheer number of variables in play. "Because many of the chemical bath parameters are changed during each processing scenario, it is not practical to perform these trials at the customer facility."
The part size problem, solved
Ask what the center has actually changed, and Muñiz reaches for a number rather than an abstraction. Before it opened, lab-scale validation could only accommodate parts under 18 inches long, a limit that fell to 12 inches for anything requiring Ecoat. "This meant that most customer parts needed to be cut into small sections and then processed."
The Surface Treatment Experience Center removes that constraint almost entirely. "With the ability to process parts on a production scale system in the center, parts up to 60 inches L x 25 inches W x 50 inches H can be pretreated and Ecoated."
Keeping pace with the aluminium shift
Electrification has changed what components manufacturers are bringing through the door, and both interviewees pointed to the same underlying flexibility as the answer. George noted Henkel's long history with aluminium substrates. "There are many Henkel supplied pretreatment systems that currently process aluminium along with steel-based substrates. Both the BEC and STEC are designed to accommodate all aluminium, mixed metal, and steel-based processes."
Before a full line trial, half or one-third of the frame could be processed at the centre for initial validation, versus in the past a full frame would need to be cut into many, many pieces to be pretreated and Ecoated at the Madison Heights facility
Muñiz went further, framing the center's zinc phosphate and thin film capabilities as two routes through the same transition. "Henkel has the ability to process parts through our award-winning BONDERITE Two-Step (Flex) process, which processes traditional ferrous metals and up to 85 percent aluminium, as well as our BONDERITE TecTalis Thin Film process, which can process ferrous metals and up to 100 percent aluminum.
"For those customers interested in transitioning to the BONDERITE TecTalis Thin Film process, parts can be processed with 0 downtime or changeover required at the centre."
Inside Henkel's BONDERITE Experience Center
A five-year shift in ambition
Both engineers described Madison Heights moving from an internal research function towards something closer to a shared development space. " “Henkel's technical expertise coupled with the capability of the BEC and STEC provide a solid foundation for quality and consistency at the customer level."
"In the past, the Madison Heights facility was viewed as more of an R&D centre, said Muniz. “Over the past 5 years, Henkel has invested a significant amount in customer experience centers in the Madison Heights facility, where customers are invited to come collaborate, learn, and even watch their own parts be processed on production scale equipment."
Where the challenges still sit
Even at production scale, geometry has its challenges. Muñiz was candid about what the center cannot yet do. "Part size is always a challenge when it comes to automotive components, although our ability to process full parts has greatly expanded with the opening of the center, we still cannot process something like a full truck frame."
Her workaround points to how the centre now fits into a broader validation pipeline rather than replacing it. "Before a full line trial, half or one-third of the frame could be processed at the centre for initial validation, versus in the past a full frame would need to be cut into many, many pieces to be pretreated and Ecoated at the Madison Heights facility."
Muñiz also flagged an adoption gap she believes the industry has been slow to close. "While OEMs have broadly adopted thin film systems across body lines, adoption for components has lagged behind. This gap presents a meaningful opportunity. Thin film technologies can deliver strong performance while improving sustainability and reducing overall process costs."
For senior manufacturing leaders weighing where to send their next validation project, both engineers came back to the same asset, experience rather than equipment. As Muñiz put it, "the automotive components application engineering team is prepared to teach and collaborate with our customers" on the strength of "over 240 years combined industry experience."
George's framing was similar in spirit. "Henkel's customers make the BEC and STEC possible. The pursuit of ever-increasing quality expectations combined with environmental and financial considerations mandate that supplier partners are equipped with the appropriate equipment, instrumentation, and, most importantly, people with the industry experience and technical expertise to help OEMs reach the next level."
