Analysis of hot-melt compositions and their components may be used for quality assurance, to determine why a system no longer performs satisfactorily, to study structural and physical properties of components, to determine the cause of good or poor performance, and to study the surface of adhesives to detennine the cause of poor performance. Several techniques and their application to the analysis of hot-melt adhesives and other polymer systems are discussed, e.g. infrared analysis, separation methods, NMR, thermal analysis, surface analysis and microscopy. -- AATA