Frequently Asked Questions

A person, team, or organization who strives to be first in their field. New products, ideas, approaches to create results that enable breakthrough performance, or entirely new functionality and capabilities. Do you want to make an impact on the world we live in? So do we.

Next Level^® enables Darcoid to scale and keep pace ahead of your growth.  Next Level^® drives integration of our four business pillars with your similar or like business pillars.  Our engineers talk to your engineers.  Our Customer Success team works closely with your planning and sourcing teams.  Our key Quality engineers develop working relationships with your SQE team. Our management team knows yours – so we learn how to focus efforts and resources to help drive your success.

Talk can be cheap. We back our Next Level^® teams with data so we can measure success and improve goals as we integrate with your teams further. Our Next Level^® teams share unique to you, our customer, scorecards – to give a roadmap of where we need to go. What further performance is available to achieve the maximum value from the relationship.  We use this same methodology to drive integration with our manufacturing partners.  Alignment up and down the supply chain.  Next Level^® is a super effective alignment model and yes, we trademarked it!  

Absolutely.  A seal is inexpensive unless it fails.  So, we evaluate your requirements from a risk control perspective.  We take the time to understand the impact a seal has on the functionality of your product.  We make recommendations for alternate sources based on our long-established practices.   It starts with understanding your logistics requirements, your quality expectations, and the in-process performance of the seal you’re looking for as a second source.  Our supply chain team, quality department, and applications engineers work together to bring you the best possible, lowest risk, alternate source. Something you can rely on for the lifetime of your program.  

The vast majority of seal failures are rooted in either inadequate original design and validation, or if something has changed in your application parameters, the mating hardware and fluids, or the seal itself.  Changes in the seal can slip through if the seal is under specified, improperly stored and handled or if quality controls are not robust.  The resultant failure modes can be thermal damage, incompatibility with fluid being sealed, insufficient squeeze, spiral failure, nibbling, extrusion, compression set, glass transition, explosive decompression, and so on.

Test Bench is a loose term but can be summed up as where we put theory into practice and develop empirical performance data.  This means engineers and technicians tear down assemblies to look at the incumbent seal, install and evaluate alternative designs, then develop objective data and observations to compare results.  Our team designs test fixturing and data acquisition techniques.  We can actuate assemblies in temperature-controlled environments from -68 to180C.  We can run soak studies on samples and perform compression set testing in YOUR fluids and temperatures.  The result?  Faster path to success for your project, supported by empirical performance data.  Replacing guestimates with certainty.  

Size matters.  The chances are you don’t have a seven-figure seal spend concentrated on a single line item.  Seal manufacturing plants like running at maximum efficiency.  Unless you have that concentrated big spend, or have a line that warrants an exclusive 24x7 production cell then you’ll have no leverage in the relationship.  Darcoid has that spend, we have that leverage, we have the Next Level^® relationships which get you the results you need.  We’re small enough to care, big enough to deliver.  Darcoid is that powerful advocate you need to assure your lines keep running with quality you can count on.  That’s why our customers chose to work with us – to get the best seal, zero defect, whenever and wherever you need it.