Web Industries Launches European Center of Excellence for Composite Innovation

 

Web Industries Inc. (Marlborough, Mass., U.S.), a precision formatter of composite materials, announced on March 4 that it has opened a European Center of Excellence for Composite Development & Commercialization (CoE) at Omega Systèmes in Nantes, France.

The new CoE offers the European market access to technical teams, a material analysis lab and pilot lines for demonstration, rapid development, testing and qualification of different composite material formats, including thermosets, thermoplastics and other composite types. The facility has high-volume composite formatting lines to transition new materials and processes to commercial-scale production. In addition to speeding new product development, the CoE can help customers devise strategies to enhance productivity and reduce costs for mature product programs, Web says.

“With this investment we offer our customers the customized support of a strategic outsourcing partner to accelerate the development of new aircraft programs and meet the market’s fast-growing needs for formatted composite materials,” says Jean-Louis Bretin, general manager, Omega Systèmes.

Web Industries acquired Omega Systèmes in January 2019 and has been investing in Omega’s France-based team, technologies and manufacturing capabilities. The Nantes CoE will collaborate with Web’s North American CoEs for composites automation and thermoplastic composite development. With its location in the west of France, the new CoE is in proximity to aerospace OEMs and their tiered suppliers throughout the U.K. and European Union. The CoE also is an active collaborator and member of many European research institutes, such as the National Composites Centre, Thermoplastic Composites Research Center, Technical University of Dresden and Technical University of Munich.

“These collaborations enable Web to be at the forefront of many innovations and trends and provide us with pathways to help our customers integrate R&D with commercialization,” says Grand Hou, director of research and technology, Web Industries. “By working collaboratively with customers early, we can drastically reduce timelines to commercialization and often reduce their cost structure through early process optimization.”