Switzerland has always been a favourite tourist destination for many. After all, the country is home to shimmering lakes, picturesque mountains, delicious chocolates, and of course, exquisite watchmaking. But it is not only Switzerland’s natural beauty and craftsmanship that has earned it a sweet spot on the world map; the country is also a global powerhouse of technological innovation. Ranked one of the most innovative countries in the world by the Global Innovation Index for nine consecutive years, Switzerland’s aggressive innovation-driven ecosystem has been driving its homegrown companies to make waves across the world.

Consider the case of the leading Swiss rubber expert Borflex Rex and its contribution to the global rubber and tyre market. Founded in 1935 by a young chemist Ignazio Favini, Borflex Rex started its journey as Rex Articoli Tecnici and initially produced cellulose fabrics for the manufacture of protective caps, waxes, and varnishes for the footwear industry. Soon after, the company wanted to expand the horizon of their core competencies, and this marked their entry into the rail transportation industry, which still continues to be one of their focal points.

Since its inception, the Swiss rubber expert has been housing a talented R&D team comprising chemists, physicists, and mechanical engineers—who can take any rubber-based product from ideation to production in the shortest period. The company always derives its impetus to innovate by answering three simple questions: “What are our in-house technological capabilities? What is our industry know-how? How can we use these proficiencies to the fullest?”

What has further strengthened the company’s offerings to go above and beyond today is its incorporation with Borflex Group—the French maven in the elastomeric parts (rubber, silicone, TPE, and polyurethane) market. The merger enabled both the companies to combine their historic glories and domain expertise to scale new heights in the global rubber-based products market. “Not to mention, this is also helping us grow faster in the rail industry as both Borflex Group and Rex focus on the sector,” underscores Andreas Spittel, commercial director of Borflex Rex.

An Illustrated Suite of Rubber-Based Solutions

Borflex Rex offers a broad range of products to address major transportation issues for the rail industry. For instance, the company’s level crossings made from rubber (Swisscross HD), resin (Swisscross GFK), and a rubber-concrete (Swisscross RUBE) mixture facilitate safer passage for both vehicles and pedestrians as opposed to the more accident-prone concrete level crossing. HD, GFK, and RUBE provide superior friction and high skid resistance for vehicular movement, even in harsh weather conditions like rain or snow.

Moreover, these rubber- or resin-made level crossings offer the best vibration damping and noise reduction along with more load resistance and less deformation.

Borflex Rex’s products also play key roles in ballastless tramway and underground tracks across Europe. In fact, the company’s name is entrenched in Swiss history as pioneers of the country’s first ballastless track using rubber-based products. Borflex Rex produces rubber boots, connection bars, and microcellular pads with static and dynamic characteristics for its ballastless tracks. The combination of these products makes it an idle choice for ballastless tracks both inside and outside of tunnels. “Our clients can either use these products directly, or we can help them customise to their desired profile and test run them through simulation in our laboratories,” comments Spittel. Using these customisable products, over the years, the company has successfully completed several railway projects for the Swiss Federal Railroads.

Along with ballastless tracks, the company has a huge market for its track components, such as railpads, acoustic protection, and cushions. A perfect case in point is its rubber boots used in biblock sleeper tracks with or without connection bars. “We have used this system in the new transversal line crossing the Alps (Zimmerberg, Lötschberg, and Gotthard), the Channel Tunnel, and other railway tracks in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brazil, and the U.S.,” mentions Spittel.

The company also provides simple yet innovative solutions for the storage and transport of rail wheelsets and bogies using its wheelset rubber support pads. The pads use magnetic fixation to stick to the wheelsets. In some cases, if the clients desire, fixations via straps are also provided as an option. Once secured to the wheel rim and the tread of wheelsets and bogies, valuable assets can be transported and stored efficiently and economically, without any fear of damage.

The applications of Borflex Rex’s rubbed-based solutions, however, are not only limited to the rail industry. Another equally growing market for Borflex Rex is developing brake pads for the bicycle industry. Operating under the trade name of SwissStop Brake Pads, Borflex Rex offers highly rated bicycle brake pads and spare parts for all types of braking systems. “We are world leaders in the field of brake pads for carbon rims, and SwissStop Brake Pads are available for sale in almost every country,” mentions Spittel.

What’s more? The company is also an important producer of rubber-based products for various other industries, which they group as technical articles.

“We develop airtight lids for the food industry; seals, gaskets, fittings, and tubes for sanitary, drainage, and wastewater applications; and plugs and protective covers for electronics companies, among others,” shares Spittel. To help firefighters do their job uninterruptedly amidst heavy traffic, Borflex Rex offers a unique hose and cable protection product called Crocodile. The solid rubber foldable bridge—which unfolds like the mouth of a crocodile—keeps the hose pipes from stopping the water flow when a vehicle rolls over it in a busy street. In a nutshell, the company offers a slew of innovative rubber products to make everyone’s life a lot simpler.

Making It All Possible Is a State-of-the-Art Laboratory

While the product manufacturing process is similar to any other plant, what differentiates Borflex Rex is its special attention to quality right from the rubber compounding stage to the production of the final product. “Each of our products conforms to the ISO TS 22163:2017 quality management requirements,” states Spittel.

Borflex Rex offers a broad range of products to address major transportation issues for the rail industry

In order to achieve this, the company has a team of chemists dedicated to identifying the most suitable materials for final use. Complementing the work of the chemists, Borflex Rex’s workforce also comprises physicists and mechanical engineers whose duty lies in translating the client requirements into tangible calculations and formulae for the final product. To adequately check the efficacy of the final outcome, these engineers are also responsible for constructing testing equipment in collaboration with clients.

At the Forefront of Progress, At All Times

Keeping up with the Swiss tradition of innovation, Borflex Rex always looks for newer ways to advance its rubber-based products. In that pursuit, the company’s R&D team constantly partners with major university research groups in both Switzerland and France.

This marriage of technical and academic knowledge gives Borflex Rex a unique advantage over its competitors to leverage leading-edge technologies in the rubber-based product manufacturing industry. To that end, one of the ongoing collaborations of Borflex Rex with the academia is looking at different ways to integrate smart sensors with rubber-based products to better track its product development lifecycle, and later, utilise the sensors for offering proactive maintenance services. “This is but one of the slight possibilities among the umpteen innovation potential that we are exploring for the future. And to make the forthcoming endeavours worthwhile, we are never just looking at the knowledge we have but also discerning what we are continuously learning with time, and then applying that meaningfully across all our product verticals,” concludes Spittel.