GAP Plastomere: a century of industrial
The original Société Chimique de Gerland was founded in the outskirts of Lyon, France, in 1906. After the first World War, the company evolved into the rubber industry and focused on manufacturing a wide range of products, from airplane tires, anti-corrosion materials, cylinder coverings, ground, flooring, and… hoses. GAP Plastomère teams and technicians have preserved the company’s background in rubber products, along with its experience in transforming flexible materials, and the chemical formulations adapted to meet specific usage requirements. But even before the second World War, Gerland felt the fabulous future development of plastic and plastomer materials. After the war, Gerland created Franco-English Plastics (FAP) in partnership with an English company, to acquire and leverage licenses for flexible hoses from the Japanese company Kanaflex, and ducts by the German company Vacuflex. With the departure of the British company, FAP became GAP (Gerland Plastics Applications), which developed the product line and integrated traditional expertise from Lyon in technical fabrics. In the mid-1990s, when the company’s major shareholder, BP, wanted to reorganize the various business activities, GAP turned naturally to the German group Schauenburg, and took on its current name.
Over the past twenty years that it has spent within the Schauenburg group, GAP Plastomère has enriched its potential with new manufacturing techniques.
The company benefited from the Group’s know-how and has increased its own expertise in manufacturing technical ducts, particularly those made of Polyurethane, while also acquiring new manufacturing processes.
This evolution has enhanced the entire product line, which has been refreshed entirely and expanded considerably. An industrial sewing workshop was created to assemble non-weldable technical fabrics. The company’s business activity took another leap forward with its acquisition of the FLEXOR workshop in 2009. Significant investment was made in flexible hose development, notably manufacturing metallic spirals that enabled GAP Plastomère to create its unique and original FLEXACIER SUPER product. GAP Plastomère has now made co-extrusion and spiral-integrated hoses its specialty, now possessing numerous machine resources able to meet strong and highly varied demand.
As a result, GAP Plastomère, French manufacturer and heir to a century of industrial tradition, is able to offer its customers one of the widest ranges of flexible, technical hoses available.
