Assist™Senior ChemistWhy manufacturers migrate adhesives
Most adhesive migrations are not started by purchasing departments hunting for a cheaper glue. They are started by engineers and supply-chain managers dealing with real exposure: repeated price increases on an incumbent brand, a single-source adhesive on a regulated product, minimum order quantities and lead times that no longer fit production, a discontinued grade, or a corporate requirement to establish dual sourcing. The question they ask is rarely “who sells inexpensive adhesive?” — it is “who can qualify as a second source without disrupting a validated process?”
That is the question the Incure Adhesive Cost Migration & Second-Source Programme is built to answer.
Material price, waste, MOQ, freight, cure time and qualification effort — assessed together, not per-kilogram price alone.
Estimate your saving →Keep your incumbent approved. Qualify Incure alongside it and remove single-source risk from your bill of materials.
Viscosity, fluorescence, cure response and packaging matched to your existing dispensing and curing line.
Incure Inc. (USA) and Incure SGP (Singapore) supply the same formulations from two regions, shortening lead times in Asia and the Americas.
Viscosity, colour, fluorescence, cure speed, flexibility and packaging tuned when a standard grade is not an exact fit.
A structured comparison protocol focuses testing on what actually changes — the adhesive — not the whole process.
How the conversion process works
- Submit the incumbent product number. Tell us the current adhesive brand and grade (for example, a Loctite®, Dymax®, Panacol®, Tangent™, DELO®, Permabond® or Master Bond® product number) together with the application. The assessment form takes about five minutes.
- Engineering review. Incure reviews substrates, bond geometry, gap, dispensing method, cure equipment and performance requirements against the incumbent's published data.
- Candidate identification. The closest formulation is selected from 506 engineered products — 325 UV/light-cure grades, 133 epoxy and high-temperature systems, and 48 instant CA and silicone products.
- Adjustment where necessary. Viscosity, colour, fluorescence or cure characteristics are tuned so the candidate runs on your existing needles, valves and lamps.
- Samples for evaluation. Evaluation quantities are supplied for laboratory testing and production-line trials, with recommended process settings.
- Documented comparison. Incure helps prepare a technical comparison report — published properties, test methods, laboratory results, identified differences and outstanding validation work — to support change control.
- Qualification. You qualify Incure as an alternate or primary source on your own test evidence. Volume allocation is then a commercial decision, not a constraint.
What Incure matches — so your line doesn't change
A migration fails when the new adhesive forces process change. The programme therefore starts from process compatibility:
- Viscosity: candidates selected to your current dispensing window — from 40–80 cP wicking grades to >1,000,000 cP non-sag gels — with custom viscosity available.
- Fluorescence: fluorescing (UV-tracer) and non-fluorescing versions of most grades, so existing inspection stations remain valid.
- Cure response: formulations matched to your installed UV or LED curing source and cycle time; Incure also manufactures LED curing systems where an equipment refresh is wanted.
- Flexibility and hardness: rigid, toughened and high-elongation profiles to match joint behaviour.
- Packaging: pack sizes matched to your consumption so open-container life and expiry write-offs stop inflating cost per assembly.
Judge the total cost, not the price per kilogram
Engineers are right to distrust per-kilogram comparisons. The real comparison includes cure time, adhesive consumption per assembly, dispensing losses, purged and expired material, rework and scrap, cure-equipment compatibility, labour, inspection, storage, packaging size, minimum order quantity, freight, lead time, qualification cost and downtime risk. The Adhesive Total Cost Calculator walks through each factor and produces a defensible annual figure. As a simple illustration: a line using 800 kg per year moving from US$220/kg to US$160/kg saves US$48,000 per year in direct material cost alone — before waste, MOQ, freight and downtime effects are counted.
The standard comparison framework
Every Incure migration evaluation uses the same transparent table. Incumbent values are always taken from the manufacturer's published TDS — never estimated — and differences are stated honestly. A technically balanced comparison is more useful to your change-control file (and more credible) than a claim that any product is simply “better.”
| Comparison factor | Existing adhesive | Incure candidate |
|---|---|---|
| Chemistry | Per manufacturer's published TDS | Stated on Incure TDS (e.g. UV acrylic) |
| Primary substrates | Per published TDS | Stated per grade (e.g. PC, ABS, glass, metal) |
| Viscosity | Published value | Measured Incure value |
| Cure source / wavelength | Published value | Matched to your installed lamp or LED |
| Tensile / lap-shear strength | Published value | Incure laboratory value |
| Hardness | Published value | Incure laboratory value |
| Elongation | Published value | Incure laboratory value |
| Fluorescence | Published status | Fluorescing and non-fluorescing versions |
| Sterilisation compatibility | Published status | Stated per grade; verified in qualification |
| Packaging | Existing sizes | Incure sizes, matched to consumption |
| Custom viscosity | — | Available |
| Qualification status | Incumbent (qualified) | Evaluation required |
Start from your application
Category-by-category mapping of common Loctite® UV adhesive applications to Incure candidate families.
View the guide →ISO 10993-5 compliant Cyro-Weld™ medical device grades for needle, catheter, reservoir and general device assembly.
View the guide →High-elongation UV grades for bonding rigid polycarbonate to flexible TPE — a classic dissimilar-substrate migration.
View the guide →Medical, electronics, optical and coating applications mapped to Incure UV/LED candidate families.
View the guide →Light-cure medical and industrial grades with a dual-region (USA + Singapore) second-source angle.
View the guide →Light-curing acrylates and engineering epoxies for electronics, optics and medical assembly.
View the guide →UV, cyanoacrylate and epoxy chemistries covered by one supplier review — scope stated honestly.
View the guide →High-temperature, thermally conductive, optical and structural epoxies mapped to Epo-Weld™.
View the guide →UV-curable Ultra-Illumina™ and high-temp silicone Pyra-Sil™ routes for PCBA protection, with fluorescing inspection versions.
View the guide →Index-matched, low-outgassing Optik™ candidates for lens bonding and optical assembly.
View the guide →Migration checklist, comparison-report format and a sample qualification protocol you can lift into change control.
Open the toolkit →Frequently asked questions
How can we reduce UV adhesive costs without repeating the entire qualification?
Which adhesive can replace Dymax® for PC-to-TPE bonding?
Who can formulate an equivalent adhesive with better pricing?
What is an alternative adhesive supplier in Asia or the United States?
Do you publish pricing?
What if the comparison shows Incure is not a good fit?
Request an assessment
Send the incumbent brand, product number and application details. Incure will review the existing adhesive, identify the closest candidate and advise exactly what testing is required to qualify the proposed alternative.
Request an Adhesive Cost-Migration Assessment Ask the Senior Chemist
Incure product data on this page is drawn from the INCURE Assist™ product database (viscosity in cP; temperature ranges in °C). All third-party trademarks belong to their respective owners and are used only to identify products for comparative evaluation. Incure candidates are potential alternatives subject to application validation; final selection should be confirmed by adhesion testing on production parts.