![Why rubber really is an engineered product](https://www.artechrubber.nl/r.php?url=/images/posts/7/5db9a937b460b_C.jpg&w=810&h=540)
Valve World’s appointment to visit Mr. Groot at Artech Rubber in Zutphen, the Netherlands, was almost cancelled at the very last minute. “I have just taken a phone call from one of my European distributors,” he said when we arrived at his office. “They have asked me to contribute to an emergency meeting tomorrow with a client who is experiencing problems with rubber-cotton fabric components in a submarine. As you can imagine, if you are preparing to dive then you want to be absolutely certain that each and every component – be they metals, plastics, rubber or whatever – is going to do the job you expect it to do and is not going to start causing problems.”