3,200 parts, one wrong assumption
In Q3 2023, we rejected 3,200 silicone sealing components. The durometer reading came in at 42 Shore A. Our spec called for 50. Standard tolerance was ±5. The parts were visibly softer than the sample we'd approved, and on the assembly line they deformed under loads that should have been routine.
When I flagged it, the vendor's quality lead said—I'm paraphrasing here—"This is standard Dow Corning silicone. It's within industry range."
Two problems with that response. First, "industry range" isn't the same as "our range," which is the only range that matters when you're signing off on a purchase. Second, Dow Corning hasn't existed as a standalone brand since 2016.
We ate a $22,000 redo and lost eleven days on a production schedule. (The vendor did the second batch at their cost—fairly, I might add—once we sent over a spec sheet that actually described what we wanted.)
What most buyers think the problem is
If you've searched for "dow corning silicone dispersions," pulled up a "dow corning logo" from an old supplier PDF, or typed "molykote dow corning" into a search bar recently, you already know the surface-level confusion. You want a specific material. You remember a name from a datasheet or a supplier conversation five years ago. You type that name into a search bar and get a mix of legacy PDFs, third-party resellers, and forum posts from 2013.
The surface problem looks like a search problem. It's not.
The surface problem, in my opinion, is that brand names have replaced actual specifications in too many purchase orders. Brand names change ownership, product lines, and even countries of origin—while the spec you actually need stays fixed.
The problem behind the problem
Here's something most people aren't told: the "Dow Corning" you're searching for is now three or four different companies, depending on which product family you need.
The Dow Corning → Dow transition
For most of its history (1943 to 2016), Dow Corning was a 50/50 joint venture between Dow Chemical and Corning Inc. In 2016, Dow bought out Corning's stake, and the silicone business was folded into Dow's performance materials division. So if you're specifying a silicone rubber, sealant, dispersion, or emulsion today, the correct current supplier reference is Dow—not Dow Corning.
This matters because I've watched purchase orders go to suppliers who quietly substitute material because "Dow Corning" is no longer a valid spec on paper. The material may be fine. But you've given up your right to reject it on documentation grounds, and the substitution happens in the negotiation, not the lab.
Molykote went elsewhere
Here's where it gets messier. Molykote—the lubricant and grease line—was part of Dow Corning. When the joint venture dissolved and Dow's broader merger with DuPont restructured, Molykote ended up under DuPont's specialty products umbrella. That's why "molykote dow corning silicone dispersions" as a search phrase returns results that don't tell a coherent story. Some resellers still use the legacy name; others have updated. In my opinion, this is one of the most common sources of ordering errors I see for grease and dispersion products.
The category confusion is worse
Now the part that trips up more buyers than any brand issue: silicone, PTFE, and rubber are not interchangeable, and they're not variations of the same thing. They're different materials with different regulatory profiles, temperature ranges, and chemical resistances.
Medical-grade PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) is not silicone. A "rubber plate" can mean natural rubber, EPDM, neoprene, or silicone—and the sub-type determines everything from UV resistance to whether it can touch skin. Silicone used for candle molds is a completely different grade than medical-grade silicone, and using one in place of the other (which happens more than you'd think) is a compliance and safety issue, not a clever cost-saving one.
If a purchase order says "silicone," "rubber," or "PTFE" without a Shore hardness, temperature range, and ASTM/ISO reference, it's not a spec—it's a wish.
What this actually costs
I review roughly 200 material specs and incoming batches per year. Between 2022 and 2024, I rejected about 14% of first deliveries—most of them for specification mismatches rather than manufacturing defects. Here's the rough breakdown:
- Redos and expedited shipping: $18,000–$30,000 per incident, depending on batch size.
- Production delays: 5–14 days on average. That's schedule your sales team already quoted to a customer.
- Compliance exposure: the hardest to quantify. If a medical-grade part arrives as commercial-grade, we can't use it in the assembly it was specified for, no matter how indistinguishable it looks.
In my first year overseeing specs (2022), I made the classic rookie mistake: I approved a batch of "silicone rubber plates" based on a legacy supplier reference without drafting our own spec first. The parts performed fine in testing. Six months later, a customer audit flagged that the documentation chain didn't establish composition per our ISO reference. We passed (barely), but we spent roughly 40 person-hours producing chain-of-custody documentation that should have taken two.
That experience is what triggered the change in my thinking. I stopped treating brand names as specs and started treating them as pointers to specs I still had to write myself.
How I fix it now
The fix is not complicated, but it's not automatic either. Every material line item on our purchase orders now includes:
- Current supplier reference (Dow for silicone products; DuPont for Molykote-line lubricants—verify current ownership before assuming).
- Material family (silicone rubber, PTFE, EPDM, etc.), spelled out—not abbreviated.
- Physical spec (Shore A hardness for elastomers, temperature range, tensile strength if relevant).
- Regulatory grade where applicable (medical, food-contact, UL, etc.), with the specific standard reference.
- Acceptable substitution policy: none, or pre-approved equivalents listed by part number.
It added maybe ten minutes per line item when we implemented it in 2023. I don't have the exact figure, but I'd estimate it has saved us six figures in avoided redos since then.
One more thing, from experience: ask the vendor what they think "Dow Corning" means before you send the PO. The answers will tell you very quickly whether you're dealing with a supplier who tracks the current material landscape or one who's been quoting the same legacy catalog for a decade. (No prize for guessing which type delivered our 42-Shore-A batch.)
Bottom line
Brand names are memory aids, not specifications. If your purchase order still says "Dow Corning" for a silicone product, or "Molykote Dow Corning" for a dispersion, you're specifying a company that hasn't existed in that form for nearly a decade. The material is still available—often excellent—but the paperwork and the accountability have to catch up. Write specifications, not nostalgia.