New pilot plant to increase speed of product innovation with customers
6 February 2025AOC announces the opening of a new pilot plant in Filago (Italy) to enable faster scale-up and introduction of new product developments for customers. This investment will reduce time-to-market for new innovative products, and provides AOC and its customers with additional opportunities to build a sustainable business in composite materials.
AOC leads the composites industry in quality and innovation, and has a track record working closely with customers to develop new formulations and applications. In line with AOC’s strategic direction to drive innovation and deliver highest value to customers, AOC has strengthened its capabilities by making a significant investment in a brand new pilot plant at its Filago (Italy) operations.
On February 6, 2025, the pilot plant was formally opened with a grand ceremony by Stefan Osterwind, Managing Director of AOC EMEA, and Paul Vercoulen, Vice-President Technology of AOC EMEA.
Versatile and flexible
“This pilot plant is really state-of-the-art”, explains Julia van Harten, Filago Pilot Plant Manager. “We can produce many different product chemistries, and the advanced controls and versatile equipment allow us to operate under real-life production conditions.
This helps to bring products to market fast, and significantly cut down the time required for commercialization together with our customers.”
Reducing time-to-market
AOC delivers quality products with high batch-to-batch consistency and performance predictability. This pilot plant will further support us in setting optimal process conditions to generate robust product formulations. This also ensures AOC customers can scale up fast to create new value added composites products and applications.
“AOC closely collaborates with customers to create unique products that combine performance and a reliability in processing.”, adds Umberto Colpani, Plant Manager of the AOC Filago operations. “Investing in this pilot plant shows that AOC is dedicated to innovation. Reducing time-to-market helps both our customers and AOC to build a sustainable business together.”
On February 6, 2025, the pilot plant was formally opened by Stefan Osterwind, Managing Director of AOC EMEA.
Committed to the European composites industry
“AOC already is the global leader in composites resin formulations innovation”, comments Paul Vercoulen, Vice-President Technology of AOC EMEA. “This unique extension of our capabilities will help our customers to build better and more sustainable value with composite materials.”
“In these uncertain economic times, there are very few companies in Europe that make such a major investment”, concludes Stefan Osterwind, Managing Director of AOC EMEA. “This demonstrates that we are committed to the European composites industry, and ready to support our customers for the challenges to come.”
