Deutschland-Nederland D-NL-HIT

The D-NL-border region forms a strong area of Chemistry with its several hundred SMEs of the surface technological core industry: adhesives, paints, varnishs, and inks for printing. By the increased request of environmentally safe products these branches find themselves in a phase of change/transition. The international competition particularly governed by Asian companies leads the SMEs, especially small and innovative ones, into a struggle for survival due to their limited resources for research in the area of High-Tech-systems and materials (HTSM). The cycles of development are too long to keep up with the highly engineered competitors.
That is the point where the high-throughput-formulation technology comes into play. Resting on fully automated and robot based modules for formulation, application and analysis product development is enhanced by a factor of up to 5, supported by Industry 4.0 technology. By utilisation of applied research in the area of innovative material and high-tech process development an efficient and fast transfer is moved quickly into production. The University of Applied Science Niederrhein supports the SMEs with its recently founded Center of Surface Science and its basis technologies. Core task of the project D-NL-HIT is the facilitation of a cooperation of companies across the borders of branches and to catalyse the knowledge transfer between SMEs, universities and big as well as mid-size companies as ingredient/substrate or component suppliers, which is addressed besides/in parallel to technological developments with more than 25 sustainable products and a lot of new processes.
A network of information and participation coupled to the project enables a sustainable integration of further SMEs of the region. By this increased participation of companies and their improved ability of product development, up to 15000 jobs will be saved for the future competition in that market.