Distrupol launches a powerful new polymer search tool

Distrupol, a member company of Univar and a leading European polymer distributor, technical service and solutions provider, has introduced a significant, web-based customer service enhancement, designed to reduce the time needed for material selection and help cut product development time.

Known as PIC (Product Information Centre) and available through Distrupol’s Web site, this powerful support tool has been created specifically to give designers and material specifiers access to a searchable technical database of the more than 3000 polymer grades in Distrupol’s portfolio. Of key importance, PIC allows the user to compare grades presented in the same format, side by side on-screen, giving a considerable improvement over paper-based and many other screen-based systems.

To ensure maximum initial exposure to the industry, Distrupol launched PIC at the PDM exhibition recently staged in Telford, UK. “We had the system running as a feature of our presentation at the show and it received a lot of positive interest both from customers and suppliers,” says Chi Lam, Distrupol’s Technical and Training Manager.

Since the show that interest has already begun converting into active users, with registrations for the service recorded from the UK, Ireland, Benelux, Nordic countries, Poland, Hungary, India and the USA.

“Our primary objective in developing PIC has been to provide a customer-friendly system that is fast, reliable and constructed according to customers’ needs rather than the supplier’s convenience,” Chi Lam explains. “PIC is intuitively easy to use, which means that even designers not necessarily involved with plastics on a daily basis will benefit from the speed and simplicity with which PIC can help them to identify the material that fulfils their design needs.”

Available 24/7 through Distrupol’s recently upgraded website (www.distrupol.com), PIC is highly versatile and through a choice of three levels of search it gives rapid and easy access to more than 3,000 material grades:

• Quick Search

Enabling materials to be found by suppliers’ name, generic names and trade names

• Technical Search

Through the input of the desired material properties, performance criteria and/or application

• Supplier Link

Locating materials by suppliers and linking directly to their websites

“To ensure that PIC delivers real value to our customers - through its structure and operation - we worked closely with IDES, a global leader in search engine technologies for the plastics industry,” Chi Lam explains. “Consequently, we believe that through PIC we are able to provide customers with a searchable polymer database that is unique in its functionality and user responsiveness, and that can make a positive contribution to their competitiveness.”