THE BUSINESS OF VISCOSITY BLOG

The team at Saint Clair Systems recently visited a well-known, highly regarded company that supplies automotive components. (The name of the company - or even the component they make - isn’t relevant to this story. What we saw there likely happens every day in the workplace in some way or another.)

Topics: Viscosity, Fluid dispensing systems, Temperature control, coil coating, Industrial finishing, Coating Technology, automotive painting, can coating

We recently did a survey of Industrial Coaters on LinkedIn to determine the pressures they were experiencing on their business. The first question dealt with the common defects they experience. We got plenty of the “usual suspects” like orange peel and run & sag, but amongst the most interesting and unexpected responses were:

Topics: Temperature control, Industrial finishing, automotive painting

So much of our online content, (blogs, articles, videos, etc.), is geared around productivity improvements, quality defects and other “cost” related elements of manufacturing. All good stuff, but maybe a little blind to the essential goal of growing your business. Whether it’s expanding business with your current customers or acquiring new customers, much of what we talk about can help.

Topics: paint and coating, Industrial finishing, automotive painting, paint surface finish, automotive paint finishing, automotive finishing

We had an interesting thing happen a couple of years ago. A major Tier 1 Automotive Supplier, (we’ll refer to as T1), contacted us to see if we could help. Their customer, a top selling luxury car manufacturer, was raising the specifications on their paint finish and T1 was being asked to match. T1 told us that they could meet the new specifications but not consistently. They were hoping we could help. Fortunately, we had a champion at the T1 plant that was familiar with us and with work we had done in other finishing operations.

Topics: automotive painting, robotic painting, paint temperature control, paint surface finish, automotive paint finishing

If your company sprays paint, you already know that this is likely the most expensive operation in your plant. 

Topics: paint and coating, automotive painting, industrial painting, robotic painting, paint temperature control, paint surface finish

With robot costs in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, automated dispensing used to be the domain of large, well-financed companies in industries like automotive, aerospace, aeronautics, etc.

Topics: Temperature control, Point of Application, paint and coating, Industrial finishing, automotive painting, industrial painting, robotic painting

Before I get into how much your material may change during your dispense process, let me provide a quick summary of why it matters. As your plant temperature changes, your material temperature often changes. When material temperature changes, the viscosity changes. When viscosity changes, the end result of your dispense changes – and nothing good happens when your finished product varies. It causes rework, scrap, customer rejects and in some cases, early product failure. In this blog, we’re going to address the effects of material temperature only. There may be other factors affecting your material but they’re not going to be addressed here.

Topics: Point of Application, automotive, coating, automotive painting, temperature control systems, robotic painting, paint temperature control, automotive paint finishing, automotive finishing

We are fortunate to get the opportunity to tour many manufacturing plants and review a large variety of dispensing processes. One thing that really stands out is that most companies do a good job dispensing. Whether it’s a manual dispensing operation with skilled and experienced operators or an automated dispense with highly repeatable motions, in general, the companies we see are already doing a good job.
When we’re out there, we often hear that either the booth or the plant are already temperature controlled. Often, this is said as if it eliminates the requirement for material temperature control. While definitely an improvement over no control, simply controlling the temperature of your booth and your plant, may not be enough to accomplish your quality and cost objectives.

Topics: Fluid dispensing systems, automotive painting, industrial painting, paint temperature control, automotive paint finishing, automotive finishing

At an event recently, we struck up a conversation with an Account Manager at one of the major paint suppliers. During our conversation we discussed the batch-to-batch variation of the paints they supply. He said what we often hear from paint suppliers, “Our paints don’t vary much from batch to batch.” When we asked why their customers often have a different perception he said, “Most of the variations that they see are self-inflicted.” That prompted us to request a more in-depth conversation so we could better understand how end users may be unknowingly creating their own batch variations. We thought his insights were helpful, so we decided to share a summary of them here.

Topics: painting, automotive painting, industrial painting, temperature control systems, Paint Temperature Control Series, robotic painting, paint temperature control, paint surface finish, automotive paint finishing

The modern paint shop is a maze of pipes and tubes carrying paint all over the place!  Some of these circulation systems even have temperature control systems designed to make sure that the paint temperature is controlled as it is circulated.  So why is paint temperature still such an issue?

Topics: Point of Application, Industrial finishing, automotive painting, robotic painting, paint temperature control, paint surface finish, automotive paint finishing, automotive finishing