Adhesive bonding is undeniably considered the most suitable join technology for modern lightweight multi-material structures.

Although the state of the art of industrial adhesives today makes it possible to think of them as high-tech products which, if used correctly, permit the manufacture of “zero defect” products, we frequently witness the failure of bonded joints caused by errors in the application of adhesives or processes.

As a result, every possible error during the manufacture of the final product must be excluded by exerting total overall supervision of the entire production process.

According to ISO 9001, adhesive bonding is considered a “special process”, because no non-destructive testing method exists that can test with 100% certainty the bonding process or evaluate its quality or its eventual errors.

One has to admit that ISO 9001 has its limits, given that it simply establishes the minimum requisites for quality management systems, not the specific production processes to be followed.

The new DIN 2304 standard fills this gap, establishing the structures of the overall “organisation” necessary for the correct application of adhesion technology.

And finally, compliance with DIN 2304 reduces errors to a minimum, makes cost reductions possible, generates awareness and trust in extending the use of adhesive bonding, improves bonding traceability and also the effectiveness of Quality Management applied to the whole company manufacturing system.