Surface World March 2020 Surface World March 2020 | Page 62

PAINT & POWDER
Dürr revolutionizing manufacturing layout for paint shops
Paint shop of the future:
away from the line, towards the box
Growing model
diversity, different
drive technologies,
and greater
personalization are
pushing conventional
line manufacturing
to its limits in
the automotive
industry. Whether
major high-volume
manufacturers or
small e-car startups,
manufacturing has
to make the switch from
rigid to flexible to be able
to respond more quickly
to customer and market
requirements. Dürr’s new
“Paint shop of the future”
concept breaks away from
the traditional line layout,
splitting up industrial
automotive painting into
boxes or short process
sections for the first time.
This allows the automotive
industry to paint much more
flexible. In addition, the
“Paint shop of the future”
saves time and material,
increases availability and
makes painting more
sustainable.
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The paint shop of the future is a modular
concept that enables easy adaptation of
production capacity to all scenarios.
Model ranges and application processes are
becoming more diverse. But the greater the
variety of models painted on a line, the more
inefficient the process. This is due to the fixed
cycle times, which are based on the biggest
model and the paint with the longest
application time. If smaller car bodies could
be transported faster and some colors could
be applied more quickly, this would save time
and increase output. However, the fixed cycle
does not allow this. This was one of the many
reasons that prompted Dürr to have a rethink
and develop a radical new layout for future
requirements.
“With the “Paint shop of the future”, Dürr is
reimagining the painting process and moving
beyond the boundaries of the production
line,” explains Bruno Welsch, member of the
Board of Management of Dürr Systems AG.
“The new approach adapts to the needs of
manufacturers, and enables an efficient and
flexible painting process in every production
scenario.”
On-demand cycle times
The general idea of the “Paint shop of the
future” is based on splitting up the 120 work
steps involved in a painting process into
boxes and smaller sections. Instead of a fixed
cycle, the process times in each box are
MARCH 2020
precisely adapted to the needs of the
individual body. This is made possible by
processes running in parallel in the boxes
and the interaction with a central high-bay
storage system and the automated guided
vehicle system EcoProFleet. The fleet of AGVs
is controlled by the software DXQcontrol.
It guides the AGVs with the car bodies
intelligently to the next processes, and in this
way ensures efficient utilization of all the
boxes. It enables the bodies to be sorted in
anticipation of future processes, brought to
and collected from the right workstation
with pinpoint accuracy, and passed off to
final assembly at the end in the sequence
planned by the manufacturer. The concept
also enables easy expansion of capacities
or smooth integration of new models. The
revolutionary box concept can be applied
to the entire top coat and workstation area,
or just to selected process steps.
Fewer resources,
greater efficiency
In terms of the concrete implementation,
the box concept means that three painting
processes – the interior and the two exterior
applications – can be combined in just one
booth. This patent-pending concept, the
EcoProBooth, thus helps to save process
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