Etra, a manufacturer of metal furniture components, opened the doors of its factory, organised entirely according to the criteria of Industry 4.0, and especially of its paintshop. Here, the implementation of a new WAGNER SuperCenter EVO has sped up colour change-over times, thus increasing production, dramatically reducing powder disposal, and improving application quality.
The Industry 4.0 parameters are now widely applied within the manufacturing industry in general and the coating sector in particular. Etra, a company specialising in the processing of metal components and based in Maron di Brugnera, in the industrious Italian province of Pordenone, offers an excellent example of the benefits that the fourth industrial revolution has brought and can bring within a production site. Indeed, this firm has chosen to implement an innovative production management system that fully complies with the criteria of Industry 4.0. This has proved to be particularly crucial in coping with the production of 50,000 school desks, required as a part of the contract awarded by the Italian Ministry of Education to reorganise classrooms throughout the country so as to guarantee social distancing and counteracting the spread of the COVID-19 virus within school facilities. [...]
“Almost all our products are intended for the furniture sector, where finishing is of primary importance, especially given that our customers belong to the high end of the market,” notes Zilli. “In the past, we used to outsource our coating operations. However, this entailed numerous problems, above all in terms of processing times, considering our customers’ increasingly pressing demand for just in time supplies.”
“With the transfer to the new factory and the decision to insource all production processes, we purchased a second-hand coating system in good condition,” states Andrea Zilli. “We started painting our parts immediately after an almost total revamping operation. However, after some time, with the growing number of customers and colours required, we realised that its old powder application system had several limitations: the time required for the colour change operations was too long and a lot of non-recoverable powder was produced. After the first year, we had already disposed of a large amount of powders. Besides our inexperience, this was largely due to the system being outdated.
“We therefore turned to WAGNER (Valmadrera, Lecco, Italy), the manufacturer of our booth. Its team suggested us installing the new SuperCenter EVO, which is a highly Industry 4.0-oriented system thanks to its software package for powder consumption management and industrial diagnostics. Without thinking twice, we decided to purchase this powder management unit and some new dispensing guns, which went into operation in January 2020. The results were immediate: since the first month, we have noticed an 80% reduction in waste powder. Our colour change times have been reduced from 40 to just 8 minutes: in fact, the operator only has to clean the booth, whereas the powder centre cleans itself automatically.” At the entrance to the booth, an optical reader manages the guns by stopping the powder flow in the lower part of the racks, where there are no items to be painted. “The whole coating phase is integrated and connected to our management system, so that we have constant control of all technical parameters.”
“We are absolutely pleased with our choice to rely on WAGNER. All the objectives that we had set out with the purchase of the SuperCenter EVO have been achieved: quicker colour change operations, increased plant productivity, dramatically reduced amounts of powders to be disposed of, with both economic and environmental benefits, and significantly improved finishing quality,” says Zilli.
Source: Francesco Stucchi, "From office furniture to school desk components, the growth of Etra through management 4.0", in ipcm® International Paint&Coating Magazine n. 66 (November/December 2020), pages 188-192
Metal structures for school desks, after machining and before coating.
The manual pre-retouching operation.
The powder coating booth with the SuperCenter EVO.
The inside of WAGNER's SuperCenter EVO.
The powder application booth.
Etra was founded in 2006 to great acclaim in the world of aluminium furnishings and extruded profiles. In the span of just a few years, its scope of production has expanded with the introduction of steel and, more recently, stainless steel.
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