When locked into a spec, engineers often have few options to select new materials. That’s especially true in the aerospace and defense industries when it comes to coatings.
“It’s not easy to change the specification even though there might be better coatings available to simplify the process,” George Osterhout, senior advisor and past president of Orion Industries, tells Design News. “The aerospace and government customers don’t allow it.”
One aspect does remain flexible when it comes to coatings—applicator selection. And not all applicators are equal, so there could be competitive advantages to selecting the right services partner.
Daphne Allen, Editor-in-Chief, of Design News recently interviewed Orion’s subject matter experts for an article highlighting our expertise in applying coatings for aerospace and defense projects and meeting their stringent specifications.
“These specs go back 30 or 40 years,” explains Michael Hughes, sales engineer for Orion Industries. “With aerospace and defense, a lot of times a MIL-SPEC for military or a Boeing spec will say, ‘coat the part per specification,’ etc. It won’t necessarily call out the coating that it needs, but that spec itself will be tied to usually a very short list of coatings that are approved to be applied for the spec. Even though our hands are a little tied on following that specification, where we come in is being able to hit that spec repeatedly with good quality and low reject rate.
“In military and aerospace projects, the worst thing that can happen is a rejection,” Hughes continues. “We provide peace of mind that they know if they come to us, we will be able to apply it to that spec, and it will be applied correctly the first time and that they’re going to get that quality product again and again and again. We like to view ourselves as an applicator that can handle processes and specifications that other companies may not be able to.”
Orion Industries has been applying functional coatings for aerospace and defense for more than 60 years and has expertise to apply more than 100 coatings. It has continued to invest in application innovation and automation as well as quality and customer service. Often a second- or third-tier supplier to aerospace or defense companies, the company holds an ITAR certification as well as an AS9100D with ISO 9001:2015 certification.
Functional coating solutions partner
“We pride ourselves in being a solutions provider for our customers,” says Osterhout. “We build partnerships and work to take their headaches away.”
Even if there are new formulations or materials, it’s difficult for clients to take advantage of some of those innovations. “That is a difficult part, because it takes a lot of testing and approval through the government to get those specifications,” says Osterhout. “It’s just like automotive and medical, where it takes time to get new products introduced and you’ve got to plod through the government regulations to get there.”
Sometimes, “the specifications are still there, but the coatings are not available because a manufacturer has stopped making it,” says Osterhout.
Continue reading article on Design News.
Learn more about Orion’s functional industrial coating capabilities and how we can help to improve the performance or your product, part or component.
Contact us to discuss your project with our technical sales team.