Most consumers have never heard of Furon, but when they get in their cars and trucks, do their laundry, or put a roast in the microwave oven, they're probably using a Furon product.
As Lou Cirillo, product manager at Furon's manufacturing center in Bristol, R.I., describes it, "Our products are everywhere, but no one knows it."
Furon has become a world leader in the production and sale of self-lubricating polymeric bearing products, which occupy an integral role in such areas as industrial processes; transportation, electronics and health care products; and the industrial equipment and capital goods industries. The publicly-held Furon, which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange, posted revenues of $312 million in 1995.
Cirillo said that all major oil companies and chemical processing plants use Furon bearings. They're used in valves and seals, anywhere that lubrication is a problem, he added. "We've been doing this since the 1950's," he said. "Our products cross every industrial group you could recognize."
For example, Cirillo said Furon spiral wound gaskets are used by chemical processing facilities to effectively seal flanges in the face of high pressures, extreme temperatures and aggressive chemicals.
Ed Richardson, Furon's director of marketing, noted that his company's self-lubricating polymer bearings are used in hundreds of places in trucks and cars. "Any place where two pieces of metal rub against each other creating friction need lubrication," he pointed out.
Rulon's two flagship products are the Rulon family of bearing products and its Meldin product line of bearing materials that operate at temperatures up to 600 degrees Farenheit.
Furon bearing products occupy an important role in the semiconductor industry, being used in office equipment for high-speed printing devices and in equipment to sort and fold mail. Said Richardson, "You have to keep oil and grease away from papers, and Furon bearings do that."
Furon products also find their way into printed circuit boards in the form of silicon rubber specialty coated fabrics, high performance pressure sensitive tapes and high temperature belting.
Another facet of Furon's impact on the technological world can be seen in the surgical and dental devices that are a common fixture of any medical office.
In the capital goods sector, Furon bearings are found in laundry equipment, robotic arms, and in pumps for food processing.
Richardson said that when Ezra Dixon founded the company in 1876, his self-lubricating bearing products were made of wood that held oil that was applied with a wick.
"The company made bearing products for the textile industries in New England. The idea of having a self-lubricating product follows along the same lines now as the original intent of the business. We're now a plastics polymer business, but we're still producing a self-lubricating product," said Cirillo.
For almost a century, Dixon's manufactured bearings evolved only slightly. With the stagnation of the textile industry, the company's president Rulon Miller worked with several chemical engineers in the 1950s to reinforce a base polymer bearing by putting additives into it and strengthening the product.
Cirillo said that Rulon found there was a tremendous need for his product outside the textile industry, including machine tools and home appliances.
Furon currently maintains facilities nationwide as well as in Europe. There are very few facets of modern technological life that do not employ a Furon product.