Now future
Confidential
Outcome
The world leader in automotive paint shop planning and implementation, both for the modernisation of existing plants and the construction of new production lines launched a complete new solution allowing for full flexibility, scalability and efficiency of the car building industry.
The concept of the paint shop of the future allows for the highest levels of flexibility. The paint shop of the future breaks away from the traditional layout used in the automotive industry and introduces a modular concept. The body parts are now painted in boxes rather than on a production line.
Replaced conveyor standard with the flexible box concept and combined exterior and interior painting in a single-spaced solution, equally equipped for base coat and clear coat.
Overspray free technology with 100% application efficiency, 0% waste, 30% lower VOC emissions, and 30% less energy consumption.
Role
Leadership
Product Strategy
User Research
Prototyping & Testing
Visual design
Challenge
Further increases in fossil fuel prices are expected in the medium term, while the costs for regenerative plants are falling as the number of installed plants grows.
As an answer to tomorrow’s challenges is this paint shop of the future—one that is flexible and scalable and offers efficiency across all the processes.
A paint shop that stands for sustainability and optimised, digitally supported processes.
Approach
Solution
The paint shop of the future: flexible, scalable, efficient
A complete concept consisting of electrically heated ovens and electric exhaust air after treatment. Electric heating uses the RTO method, which decouples heating and air pollution control. Decentralised, compact individual units provide heat. The units have the additional benefit of streamlining the layout since large duct systems for supplying heat are no longer required. Highly efficient heat recovery means that manufacturers can use the energy in the exhaust airflow almost completely for heating fresh air. This reduces energy losses via the exhaust air to an unprecedentedly low level.
Another energy-efficient tool is the predictive fresh and exhaust air control system. The intelligent software regulates the oven’s electricity consumption by tailoring the energy demand to the exact number of bodies in the oven and reducing consumption during operation at partial load. Switching to skidless conveyor technology like traverse technology also saves energy since the oven heats less material which needs to cool down later.
The concept of the paint shop of the future allows for the highest levels of flexibility. The paint shop of the future breaks away from the traditional layout used in the automotive industry and introduces a modular concept. The body parts are now painted in boxes rather than on a production line. These boxes are scalable and this makes them ideal for a wide variety of component sizes and applications. Instead of fixed cycle times, there are requirement-based process times. New models can easily be integrated at any time, which increases the overall availability of the plant. In combination with intelligent IIoT solutions, the paint shop of the future can be adapted to any production scenario.
Innovative car body curing from the inside
A new generation of car body curing.
The heating and cooling of the car body take place primarily from the inside.
Air flow control produces the best possible top coat appearance. The car body is heated up from the inside, resulting in even heating and cooling conditions. Consequently, flow velocities on the outer body surface are minimal, greatly improving the appearance and distribution of the top coat and thus the surface quality. Leading paint suppliers have proven with their own research that paint curing with this new standard produces less waves and significantly improves quality.
The principle of heating from the inside reaches massive car body components of the framework, e.g. rocker panels, more directly than conventional systems. This means optimum heat transfer from the hot air flow to difficult-to-access parts/areas. What’s more, it reduces the required process time for heating up the body by up to 30%.
Best for EVs
Electric vehicles need – among other things – well-reinforced rocker panels to protect the batteries in the event of a side impact. This procedure dries these rocker panels with their increased material thickness far better than conventional ovens, and prevents overheating in thinner parts of the body shell.
The same goes for future multi-substrate car body generations with new material combinations and new joining methods. Here, specifically, the new drying method reduces thermal component stresses to ensure increased process reliability.