Automotive

 Description of Industry

Automobiles and chemistry. All areas of the automobile industry contain sophisticated chemistry. Thousands of materials come into play each with their own Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS). How does an organization maintain specifications in production with all of the reactive chemistry that is involved in the process of building vehicles?

Automobiles employ numerous materials with complex chemistries.  They contain materials originally made by several different industries for example paint, adhesives, plastics, chemicals, textiles, glass, rubber, and electronics. Each individual product could introduce off-odor or problematic volatile chemicals into an automobile interior, or into the environment where automobile assembly occurs, or the environment external to assembly. Problematic volatiles and odors may be very complex and difficult to trace in the production process. Volatile Analysis provides this specialization.

Applicable Services

What we do

We design custom strategies to manage off-odor issues. Strategies include sensory panel measurement of cultural differences that impact product acceptability.  A good example of this is “new car” odor. Some consumers in the US find new car aroma pleasant while consumers from different cultures overseas find new car aroma objectionable. VAC uniquely employs sensory analysis and analytical chemistry to measure chemicals responsible for odor, and determine which are most offensive to a cultural group. We can help with determining the importance of the chemical in processing and suggest an alternative strategy.  Whether you desire assistance with odor issues in the research stage for new product development or design of odor and aroma parameters that yield the best product deliverable for each market, we can deliver.

Odor Problems and Complaints

Due to the complex nature of automobile components, an off-odor may be very difficult to track down.  VAC specializes in odors and where they originate.  We can quickly provide the answers needed for odor mitigation. Whether an odor is occurring in the community arising from your production processes, or an odor is being perceived in a customer’s vehicle, VAC can support your investigation and move you toward your answer in the most effective manner.

Related News, Case Studies, and Blog Posts

What is Off-Odor?

What is off-odor?  The true answer is you’ll know it when you smell it!  Doesn’t have to stink like dead fish or 2 week old ground beef left in the refrigerator, although those certainly are obnoxious.  Off-odor can be a nice fresh floral smell, like that of a rose, only the rose aroma originates from a batch of freshly roasted pecans.  The rose aroma doesn’t belong there.  It detracts from the richness of deep, warm, roasted pecan aroma. Many off-odor projects we tackle at Volatile Analysis involve issues akin to that of rose-pecan.  Aroma chemistry tells us one very common fragrant molecule that has an aroma similar to rose is...

Statistics of Sensory Assessment: Cohen’s Kappa

Statistics of Sensory Using people as diagnostic sensors produces more variation than instrumental methods. There are situations where the benefits of human-based measures outweigh their inconsistency. This is particularly true for aromas and flavors. Choosing, training and aligning panelists is a big investment. If sensory activities are key to your business success, you need to know how well your system is performing. Evaluating sensory judge quality can be challenging. Between-judge agreement appears simple, yet it is critical to success. Cohen's Kappa One approach to evaluating agreement involves Cohen’s Kappa. For example, the judges measure a set of standards for intensity, using four levels. The collected impressions are then compared. A Kappa table looks like...