Editor’s Note: This story is the inaugural
article in PF’s “Solutions” section, a new monthly
feature dedicated to exposing readers to supplier-driven efforts
to provide solutions to the day-to-day obstacles faced by individual
finishers and the industry as a whole. For more information on this
new feature, read Matthew Little’s column, “Reality Check,”
beginning on page 6 of this issue.
Most people in the product finishing industry recognize PPG
as one of the world’s largest suppliers of coatings in a number
of different industries, including automotive and general industrial.
Recently, Products Finishing magazine was invited to spend a day
on the campus of the company’s Application & Process Development
Lab in Flint, Michigan. What was discovered was far more than a
simple product showcase or technology proving ground.
“If They Make Cars, They’ve
Been Here”
Launched in February, 1985, the Flint facility was originally
designed as a teaching facility for employees of General Motors.
During that period, PPG educated 25 GM employees on both manual
aspects of automotive finishing, as well as the operation of automatic
equipment. Over the course of time, the facility opened its doors
to the rest of the automotive world. “If they make cars, they’ve
been here,” said Site Manager Bob Marr.
Today, the bulk of the work performed at the Flint facility remains
automotive, though some general industrial work is performed there
as well. Aside from the gamut of automakers, employees of companies
like Batesville Casket, Snap-On Tools, Harley Davidson and Steelcase
have visited the campus.
The Flint center is one of two major application facilities operated
by PPG (The other is located in Ingersheim, Germany). The company
also maintains a handful of secondary facilities around the world,
where similar processes are employed on a smaller scale.
One of a Kind
The Flint facility—designed to simulate any aspect of
the coating process—is equipped with temperature and humidity-controlled
spray booths that can be used to spray water-based or solvent-based
basecoats and clearcoats. The lab also features prep booths, robot
modules, conveyors and ovens. In 1989, the company installed a fully-automated
full-size powder coating system and began performing the application
of powder clearcoat and powder primer.
In 2001, a $6 million one-of-a-kind electrocoating (e-coat) application
center was added to the campus. The new facility spans 15,500 sq
ft and houses two 28,000 gallon e-coat tanks with temperature controls
and filtration equipment. The tanks are large enough to dip full
vehicle bodies up to 8x8x25 ft. The center also features two 30,000-gallon
product storage tanks and a specially designed indirect-fired gas
oven that can also simulate direct fired conditions. This oven is
also equipped with full black wall radian capability. An automated
computer-controlled bridge crane system—used for dipping and
removing the vehicle bodies from the tanks—automates the process,
providing the ability to reproduce line conditions or simulate desired
changes. The state-of-the-art bridge crane system sets entry angles
up to 45 degrees and can simulate “porpoise” motion, and
an assortment of immersion and emergence conditions.
One of the unique aspects of the electrocoat application center
is that, as operations are performed, they are recorded by video
cameras and all processing parameters are stored in the computerized
control system for future reference. Finishers are then able to
view the video in the facility’s meeting room and—upon
departure—can take back to their plant a videocassette of the
process, further enabling them to ensure consistency between their
“at-home” operations and the processes as tested on the
campus at the Flint facility.
More Than Just a Proving Ground…
Outside of the work performed in a supplier’s Research
and Development labs, one might wonder why an industry supplier
would invest the time and money performing coating operations, with
little direct, tangible benefit. However, in a benign variation
of Sun Tzu’s “know yourself and know your enemy”
philosophy, PPG believes that, in performing the coating processes
that its customers perform on a regular basis, it can ultimately
have a better understanding of the finishing community as a whole.
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A car body emerges from
one of the Flint facility’s two 28,000 ft2 e-coat tanks.
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“In each [industry], we find that in the coatings technologies
you are applying to products, often times the process by which the
customer is going to apply the coatings has a significant impact
on the overall performance, appearance or final product quality,”
said Vince Dattilo, manager of PPG’s Applications Technology
& Process Development Center, Automotive Coatings Business Unit.
“In this facility, we try to simulate what finishers are going
to do with a particular product, which allows us to truly be able
to understand the finisher’s process and formulate a coating
that matches that process.”
The notion that providing value-added service is good for business
is hardly a unique idea. But the facility also plays a critical
role in several other aspects of the day-to-day operations of both
PPG and finishers.
Technology Validation. Although the bulk of product development
takes place at PPG’s various R&D labs, the Flint center
plays a role in the company’s technology validation process.
For instance PPG recently coated several vehicles with its Dura-Prime
electrocoat paint. The vehicles were then evaluated at various automaker
test tracks for chip resistance and early signs of corrosion and
UV degradation.
Risk Management. By mimicking the processes performed by
various finishers, the Flint facility serves to address potential
obstacles before they occur. And because the facility tests coatings
with equipment from a variety of equipment manufacturers, the finger-pointing
that sometimes occurs between equipment and coating suppliers is
eliminated.
Education. The Flint facility is used to educate finishers
not only about coatings, but also about finishing processes and
equipment in general. By learning how to employ their day-to-day
processes more effectively, finishers can increase productivity
and reduce in-plant re-work and scrap. PPG also plans to develop
a customer focused Learning Center on the Flint campus. Mr. Marr
noted that the curriculum could be available to not only operators
but designers and engineers as well, where the learning or test
experiments are specifically directed and project founded.
Automotive Coatings:
What’s Next?
PF Editor Matthew Little spent a few minutes chatting with Dennis
Taljan, PPG’s Global Director of Decorative Products. The two
discussed the current and future trends of automotive coatings from
both decorative and functional standpoints. Here’s a look at
their conversation…
Q: Compared to ten years ago, today’s end-users seem
to be quite a bit more savvy about the finish on their vehicles.
Do you agree with this?
A: I do believe that. I think the [automotive] lease
market has had a lot to do with that fact. More and more people
are leasing their cars these days. When they bring them back in,
they get charged for excessive wear in a number of instances, and
one of those areas is in the finish. We’re now seeing that
the value of a good paint job on a car actually increases with time.
If you see a car in a parking lot and it’s four years and it's
shiny and it's glossy and hasn’t faded and all the parts match,
you’ll say, “That’s a pretty good car.” The
transmission could be shot, and the brakes may not work, but your
first impression is that the car is pretty good. If you see a rusted,
faded vehicle, your immediate reaction is, “That car is a junker.”
Q: What consumer trends are you noticing from a color standpoint?
A: Metallics are huge and will probably continue to be huge
for some time. One of the things that we’re seeing now is a
focus on differentiation between “sporty,” “tough”
and “sophisticated.” So you see Cadillac buyers looking
for a liquid metal type of effect. If you go into a jeweler, you’ll
see gems that are really polished, smooth and shimmery. Some car
buyers want that same kind of sophistication that says “I’m
paying top-dollar for a car. I’m sophisticated.” Likewise,
if I’m 40 years old and I’m going through my mid-life
crisis, I might not be able to afford a Lamborghini, but I can buy
a bright yellow Dodge Ram pick-up truck. So we’re seeing a
sense of individuality, and colors that match the mood of the buyer.
And again, some of that I think is related to the leasing and turnover
of vehicles. People can come in and out of a vehicle more quickly
than they had historically. Consequently, they may go a little bit
further away from just a traditional tried-and-true color.
We’re trying to work closely with design houses as we develop
new colors so that the colors actually match the personality of
the vehicle. We want them to add to the brand image. We’ll
get requests from the design people to design colors that meet the
impressions created by certain words like “tough” or “sophisticated.”
We’ll try to match the color palette to the vehicle and its
character.
Q: How about from a functionality, or durability, standpoint?
A: The 90s saw us spending an awful lot of time developing
clearcoats that were resistant to environmental fall out, whether
that’s acid rain or insect carcasses or bird excrement. Clearcoats
have come a long way in the past ten years so that they can resist
all of those. Now, instead of etching into your car’s film,
you just run some water from a hose over the top of it to rinse
it off so there’s no mark left.
Q: So what’s next in this area?
A: Now we’re working on the scratch-and-mar component.
We just commercialized in the past year the CeramiClear product
with Daimler Benz in Europe on Mercedes vehicles. This is a coating
that greatly enhances the scratch and mar resistance of the finish.
If someone comes along with a sharp implement and they scratch down
to the metal, there’s nothing we can do about that. But now,
coatings are getting to the point that they will tolerate branches
or people rubbing up against and things like that, so you don’t
end up with a mar on your finish.
Q: What about the primer layer?
A: We’re spending a lot of time down deeper in the film,
in the primer layer, working on chip resistance. If you’ve
driven I-75 between Toledo and Detroit, you can find everything
from a refrigerator door to a bolt lying on the road, and they all
come flying up at your car. We’re trying to do some things
now that, regardless of the shape that the designer chooses for
his vehicle, we can put on a coating system that resists chipping
as it gets impacted by the road debris.
