Service Process / Highly customized research and development capabilities to help customers develop special-purpose pre-coated steel products.

Case study for Anti-Fingerprint stainless steel (AFP-SUS)

The end customer is a large US consumer product company. The final product is an electronic soap dispenser manufactured by an EMS partner. Stamping is done by a Japanese stamping house located in Mexico. The material is purchased through a Japanese steel trading house.

The electronic soap dispenser originally used sus304 with clear coating. However, the stamping house had difficulties with their original supplier with quality issues such as small particles in the coating layer, and air bubbles between the protective film and coating. After stamping, the air bubbles would leave unrepairable marks on the clear coating.

The Japanese steel trading house found Lienchy on the internet and sent us an inquiry for our anti-fingerprint stainless steel product. We explained advantages of our products and sent samples for the customer to perform testing. Since we already have existing customers using our anti-fingerprint stainless steel products in microwaves, washing machines, kitchen range hoods on regular basis, we were able to supply production samples in the exact thickness and size requirement for testing. We were able to offer a small batch sampling (100pcs) as well.

AFP or no AFP?

Because of the less-than-satisfactory experiences with the previous supplier, the end customer initially had some doubts about using anti-fingerprint coated stainless steel. We advised customer against using bare 430 or 304 for accessories near the sink area. Bare sus430 and 304 material will smudge easily and these smudges are difficult to remove. With our acrylic coating, the stainless steel will not become yellowish over time as it is often the case with polyester coating, or bare stainless steel. Most anti-fingerprint coating available on the market uses polyester-based formulation. We are receiving more and more inquiries for anti-fingerprint coated stainless steel products. We believe AFP-coated stainless steel is a trend to stay.

sus304 or sus430?

sus304 price is more volatile due to its nickel composition. With global demand for electric vehicles and energy storage batteries, although still relatively low at the moment, nickel price will continue to rise (see below for LME Nickel chart) and hence sus304 price. Although still affected by rising sus304 price, sus430 price is more stable. Additionally, with our AFP coating, sus430's corrosion and chemical resistance increases, and become very good alternative to sus304. Our AFP-SUS430 has been used in Japanese washing machines. Given the harsh working environment of a washing machine (water and detergent), it shows the durability of our anti-fingerprint stainless steel product.

AFP-SUS430

Without a small batch (100pcs) sampling, the consumer products company approved the switch of supplier and placed a production order with our antifingerprint stainless steel sus430 to replace clear coated sus304. We have our own slitting and shearing facility so we can supply sheet size directly to the stamping house.

In this case, the customer successfully replaced the problematic material with our product, and made significant savings in material cost by replacing sus304 with sus430 because with our anti-fingerprint coated sus430 have superior anti-corrosion properties. We provide a product that is superior in performance and cheaper cost than the original material.