FARID INDUSTRIE SPA

The Company Farid Industrie SpA of 109, Via Moncalieri 10048 Vinovo, Turin is an industrial group (that also includes the Companies Valle Teiro and Moro Teveico, which manufactures urban refuse collection machinery. The Vinovo factory houses the painting system GL Finishing concentrated its activities on.

Customer Objectives
The Company’s needs were as follows:
• Comply with Ministerial Decree 44 on the environment.
• Reduce Department critical paint and solvent safety issues
• Improve paint operator environment.
• Optimise painting costs due to product waste during colour changes and washing.
• Improve paint process with collection of paint consumption data per piece, lot or series and in-process alarms, and data input to the Company PC Centre via Ethernet

 Previous Situation
The painting department consists of two twin systems both consisting of a pressurised cab featuring two paint lifts each. Enamel is applied in both systems. Two on-lie ovens bake paints applied; parts to be processed reach the line already primer base painted. Paint products were solvent base, applied with Graco mechanical mixers supplied by GL Finishing. The Customer’s main issue was painting cycle times. Stops between pieces to be processed lasted longer than paint pot life. This situation required plant washing after each piece processed, with enormous time, paint and solvent wastage.
 Present Situation
Complete PC industrial supervision with process data collection and management.
• Graco Promix mixing system 4 installed on the paint lifts.
• Painting control installed on each paint lift.
• Centralised paint box shared by the two cabs, containing a 300-litre reservoir with a compressed air acrylic water enamel shaker, a catalyst dehumidified tanks, and one for the washing solution complete with all paint delivery pumps to the cabs.
• Possible non-standard enamel management.
• Stainless steel supply tubing to the cabs.
Farid Industrie SpA presently paints with an acrylic two-component enamel, with solution in the 4 paint lift mixing systems.
The Company reached its stated ecological objectives (Cf. Graph) and time, paint and solvent saving aims in washing and colour change operations.
 Advantages
GL Finishing identified the most critical area as the period between piece washing operations, which was even worse when water based paints were used. Solving this problem also meant providing the Customer with an economic advantage, by reducing solvent, time and paint usage over the present situation, and useful to calculate ROI. The two scenarios proposed by following two different routes, with just one mixing system for the paint, or two – one for each station – were as follows:

Solution with one Promix system per cab with 1⁄4” tubes:
Project Data
- 8 washings a day on 2 cabs during each 8-hour shift
- Total tube length: 74 metres – 15 metres and 22 metres per cab
- Recommended tube diameter: 1⁄4”
- Paint specific weight: 1,23
- Total static mixer product content (2 per cab): 120 cubic centimetres
- Mixed paint cost: 6.5 €
- Paint disposal cost: 1 €

Solution with two Promix systems per cab with 1⁄4” tubes
Project Data:
- 8 washings a day on 2 cabs during each 8-hour shift
- Total tube length: 28 metres – 7 metres and 7 metres per cab
- Recommended tube diameter: 1⁄4”
- Paint specific weight: 1,23
- Total static mixer product content (2 per cab): 240 cubic centimetres
- Mixed paint cost: 6.5 €
- Paint disposal cost: 1 €
So, with the same tube diameter of 1⁄4”, the solution with 4 mixing system offers yearly savings of 21,600.00 Euros, calculated on one shift.