2 teams 

To ensure that the technologies, materials and processes used always meet market requirements, at least two teams work closely together on innovations: The employees from the divisions, who are close to the customers and know their products inside out. And the researchers from the six technology fields, who support and test new products through innovative processes. In doing so, the extrusion experts draw on a large external knowledge and supplier network. Innovation is real teamwork at REHAU.  
 

15 percent recycled material

In the interests of sustainability, we at REHAU are using materials that consist increasingly of recycled plastics. The aim here is to achieve a recycled content of at least 15 percent across the REHAU group in order to reduce the CO₂ footprint of products and conserve resources. It is often a challenge to process these recyclates reliably in extrusion in order to guarantee the usual REHAU product quality. This is also the task of our experts in the six research fields in close cooperation with the REHAU plants. 
 

1 challenge

Digitization offers huge potential in product and process development as well as in production. For example, digitalization allows for modelling new extrusion processes via digital twins and to test them virtually via simulations. This not only helps to save tons of material in test series, but also allows for a quicker qualification of the production processes up to series level, hence more cost-effectively. In addition, digitization facilitates work in the plant on the extrusion lines through data acquisition and active process control - but on the other hand makes new skills necessary. The topic of personnel therefore affects the extrusion sector in many ways, and employees today must have different skills than they had a few years ago. For this reason, both in development and in production, the focus is on inspiring & motivating employees for REHAU, continuously qualifying them, and thus ensuring REHAU's success with extruded polymer solutions.