Solutions Videos
Cut and Sew Solutions
Our Cut and Sew Solutions seamlessly blend high-touch and high-tech techniques to create high-quality automotive interior components. Hand craftsmanship is the common thread integrated into every phase of production – from prototyping and modeling to materials selection to cutting, sewing, and wrapping. By combining old-time artisanal expertise, timeless luxury materials, and modern-day tools, IAC provides superior solutions with a personal touch unique to each customers’ individual needs.
ThinFoam™
The ThinFoam process and materials innovation allows instrument panel thickness to be reduced from an industry standard 8-to-10 millimeters to 3. This provides weight-reduction and cost-savings advantages, as well as greater design freedom, for cast-skinned instrument panels.
HybridFleece Molding™
IAC HybridFleece Molding is a unique process for combining the pressing of a thermoplastic mixed fiber fleece from a natural fiber, glass, or recycled carbon fiber with the molding of stiffening ribs and clips into a one-step process in the same molding tool with no need for additional welding or gluing. The technology can be used to produce a variety of lightweight structural and visible (A-surface) interior components and is designed to reduce process complexity.
SmartFoil™ Solution
SmartFoil is a TPO (thermoplastic olefin) material that provides improved craftsmanship and luxury, while providing up to a 10 percent weight savings over traditional solutions. SmartFoil’s leather-like, durable top coat improves scratch, scuff and mar resistance, and was initially designed for lower door panels on vehicles with low entry/exit points. SmartFoil’s A-surface material has an excellent grain definition and a vacuum-form feel at a similar cost to soft-touch paint.
FiberFrame™
FiberFrame replaces the sun roof’s metal reinforcement frame with a lighter alternative employing strong, natural fibers using a new raw material comprised of 70 percent renewable content – all while improving the frame’s structural rigidity. This unique lightweight solution is reinforced using IAC’s EcoMat natural fiber-based, semi-finished mat material, which was especially developed for this application. The fiber mat is molded with a thermoset binder and is manufactured in-house by IAC in a hot molding process.
CoreBack™
CoreBack is a proprietary process that adds a chemical foaming agent to the resin when molding a vehicle interior component. After the resin compound is injected, the mold is opened 1-to-2.8 millimeters to activate the foaming agent to create a stronger product that is a 20-to-30 percent lighter than traditional injection-molded components.
