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May 14, 2000
Sniffing Car Parts: Yes, the Job Stinks
EVERY few days, at precisely the same hour, a quiet group of experts files into a special room in Bergen op Zoom in the Netherlands. By TIM MORAN
The white room looks dull, on purpose. The experts wear neutral-colored clothing and no makeup, perfume or after-shave -- and have agreed not to eat garlic or spicy foods the night before their meeting. Their job is to be bland. If one is ill, the others shun him or her by mutual agreement.
Their meeting lasts only 15 to 30 minutes. By then, their special abilities are used up.
They are the "expert noses" for an automotive supply company, GE Plastics Europe, and their job is to sniff plastic to keep foul smells from becoming part of your car.
"I think they have an awful lot of pride," said Cynthia Arnold, director of technology. The odor panel is made up of full-time workers with extraordinary sensitivity to smell.
The team was formed when it became clear that a large customer, Volkswagen, was getting serious about smell. With more plastics, glues and advanced materials entering the car, the odors were getting strong -- too strong, VW told parts suppliers.
"More or less, it came about in the VW Golf instrument panel," said Frank Litjens, market development manager for interiors. "That instrument panel was the first with a hard requirement for smell, a number which we should meet."
So GE Plastics recruited a product-research firm, Oliemans Punter en Partners of the Netherlands, and gathered a group of 30 employees willing to be trained to become expert noses.
"As you can imagine, not every nose is suited," Mr. Litjens said.
The 11 most sensitive noses received 12 weeks of training.
Their work qualifies and quantifies the smell of material samples. Odors are rated on a quality -- sweet, musty, acidic -- and on now strong they are, with a rating of 1 being the weakest and 6 unacceptably strong.
GE Plastics was surprised when its noses gave a thumbs-down to the company's resin. "When we started to develop it, our product had a rating of between 5 or 6," said Rob de Jong, technology manager for Noryl resin. "We have been able to reduce this to 3."
Mr. Litjens said the supplier now understood that there was a lot of room to improve the mix of odors that linger in a car, and even to make smell a selling point. "The intention, in principle, is first, take out the smell intensiveness, make sure it doesn't smell higher than you required," he said. "Then, later on, you can sell it as a marketing tool by maybe including pleasant smells." Ms. Arnold says the panel gives GE Plastics a new business to offer customers.
And there have been personal benefits for the odor panelists. "They're highly sophisticated now," Ms. Arnold said. "They're popular for wine tastings."
