Other Industries

For over ten years now, customers, market partners and corrosion experts from the entire value chain have been meeting annually at the DÖRKEN Days. On November 7^th, Christos Tselebidis, global executive vice-president industrial coatings at DÖRKEN, welcomed guests to this year's meeting at the ATLANTIC Congress Hotel Essen and was impressed by how many guests had traveled from different countries – with European visitors, as well as visitors from India and Vietnam to Korea and Taiwan.

“Current megatrends and changes are challenging us,” said Christos. “We can't change that. We can only learn to be flexible and find answers to them.” He also provided an overview of current changes in the automotive industry and gave an in-depth look at bolt distribution in combustion engines compared to hybrid or electric engines.

Lucas Schmelz, product & project manager at DÖRKEN, Tobias Kleyer, team lead at DÖRKEN Coatings Academy and Gianna Bergmann who works on corporate sustainability at DÖRKEN, provided information on the topics that have kept DÖRKEN busy over the past year. These included further development of zinc flake products that cure at room temperature, projects in the context of the DÖRKEN Academy and the topic of sustainability and carbon footprint. Ralf Böhl from prosimalys GmbH then calculated the carbon footprint of some DÖRKEN products in a live demonstration.

PFAS ban: First-hand information

Throughout the day, DÖRKEN employees and external partners provided exciting insights into current topics. Of course, the topic of PFAS was not to be missed. After Sabrina Hilbt, strategic sales manager at DÖRKEN gave an introduction to the topic, Joel Thomas from Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC explained an OEM's approach to switching to PFAS-free products. Norbert Lewan from the contract coater GALFA GmbH & Co. KG presented the results of PFAS-free products from DÖRKEN on zinc-nickel coated bolts.

Michael Stähler, lead technologist fasteners at DÖRKEN, among others, provided insights into coating practice, vividly explaining how OEMs write their specifications. Omar Sawani, software integration engineer at DÖRKEN also presented DÖRKEN's digital user manual – a document for practical use that not only contains product information, but also instructions on correct pre-treatment, coating preparation and the coating process. Andor Bariska from coatmaster AG spoke about new possibilities in coating thickness measurement. He presented new functions of the measuring device, which interested parties were able to see for themselves during the subsequent break.

International meeting

Many guests were also interested in DÖRKEN's market activities abroad. Andrej von Hofman, general manager, DÖRKEN China, Onnen von Bredow, CEO, DÖRKEN Coatings Korea/head Asia Pacific – India/vice-president and Albert Gelles, CTO, DÖRKEN North America provided insights into country-specific topics, general market development and the development of the automotive industry overseas in particular.

Last but not least, Omar Sawani presented the importance of AI (Artificial Intelligence) for companies and dispelled rumors that this is only relevant for large tech companies. On the contrary, he demonstrated the opportunities and possibilities that the use of AI also offers for small and medium-sized companies.

Successful days of networking and exchanging experiences

Christos Tselebidis had the closing words of the eventful day. Afterwards, all participants moved on to dinner together. Not only there, but also during the day between the presentations, the participants were able to network and hold discussions. “An informative day lies behind us – and, as always, it was a pleasure to welcome so many partners on site,” he summarised. “We would like to thank all participants for their interest and the speakers for their great and exciting presentations. We are already looking forward to the DÖRKEN Days 2025.”