The North American market and the automotive industry, in particular, are strategic for RadiciGroup. That is why the RadiciGroup Performance Plastics Business Area - present in the USA since 1998 - has continued to invest in improving its production plants, increasing production capacity and ensuring prompt customer delivery of its innovative and sustainable portfolio of products available worldwide.

At NPE 2018, RadiciGroup Performance Plastics exhibited its range of engineering plastics - from basic products to nylon specialties for engineering applications - and its latest technological advancements at its production plants.

“For us, North America is an extremely important market, where we intend to further strengthen our position”, said Edi Degasperi, CEO of Radici Plastics USA. “This applies, above all, to the automotive sector, which makes up about 70% of our sales in the USA, Canada and Mexico. For this reason, we have continued to invest in our plants, as we have recently done in Wadsworth, Ohio, where a new compound line was added to boost production capacity up to about 27 thousand tons per year. For the current year, additional investments are planned, not only to increase material silo storage capacity but also to improve the air filtering and purification systems in the production areas and to expand material and compound testing by adding new analysis equipment in the testing labs”.

The progressive strengthening of the Group’s market position in North America was highlighted by two important acquisitions: in 2015, a plant in Ocotlan, Mexico, renamed Radici Plastics Mexico, and, in 2016, the Engineering Polymer Solutions branch of the US company Invista, a transaction that aided the expansion of the RadiciGroup product portfolio by adding the Torzen brand of PA 6.6 engineering thermoplastics.

RadiciGroup Performance Plastics brings the North American market - and all other markets in the world - a complete, innovative and sustainable offering of engineering plastics: high quality, performance, and physical and mechanical properties are guaranteed by the specialized personnel employed at the production plants and by the global sales, marketing and R&D organization.

“We have proceeded along three strategic lines”, said Erico Spini, marketing & application

development director of RadiciGroup Performance Plastics. “The first one is expanding the offering of innovative products: during the last ten years, our Research and Development team has embarked on a path of continual evolution, which has broadened our family of engineering plastics with the addition of new products and brands, from PA 6.6 Radilon HHR to PA 6 and PA 6.6 Radistrong, as well as the more recent entries, PPA Radilon Aestus T and PPS Raditeck P. Our objective has been to give the best possible response to market stimuli, especially in the field of metal replacement and improved chemical and high temperature resistance”. “Our second strategic path is to establish ourselves as a recognized solution provider”, Spini continued. ”In other words, we’ve taken on the commitment to become a partner to our customers in their innovative projects, suggest the most suitable materials for the purpose, develop new products, as needed, and provide support in the simulation of mould filling and structural analysis”. “Thirdly”, Spini concluded, “we pay special attention to new applications in emerging and innovative fields. Here I’m talking about ‘e-mobility’, a sector for which we provide materials for battery covers, charging plugs and connectors (engineering plastics from the Radiflam family), along with products for the battery cooling system (Radilon RG, D, DT, Aestus and Raditeck) and high voltage connectors (Radiflam). We also provide materials for the water and plumbing sector, for which we’ve developed a wide range of metal replacement products, such as the engineering plastics Radilon A (PA6.6), Radilon DT (PA6.12) and Radilon Aestus (PPA). Some of these materials have already been certified for use in contact with drinking water and hot water, in accordance with the applicable laws and regulations in the various countries”.