SMIT – TEXTILE

The Company Smit Textile SpA of Schio, Vicenza manufactures and sells textile industry machinery. It operates mainly on foreign markets, China in particular.

Customer Objectives
The main need expressed by Production Manager Bartolomeo Tonin was to make the system electrostatic and automatic after assessing specific advantages. This required:
• Minimising paint consumption
• Cutting application times from the current 40/45’ to 25’
• Achieving uniform coverage degree of no less than 35µ
All the above was to refer to an average G2600 frame on which tests were to be made.
 Previous Situation
The painting system consisted of two non-electrostatic average pressure manual control airless technology stations and the paint used was a water base variety. The paint hall supplied by GL Finishing in 1997 was predisposed for feeding two main enamels from stainless steers reservoir by means of 5:1 compression rate pumps. The rigid supply pipes were bracketed to the wall and fed the two cab walls by passing below the grid where cab water recirculation was performed. Paint consumption was around 5 kilos per machine, with irregular coverage, often over 45 to 55 µ.
 Present Situation
We developed the project jointly with ABB and set out a paint system consisting of:
• 2 Iso-Flo systems with an electrostatic generator
• 2 anthropomorphic robots
• 2 mixed air paint guns
To satisfy Smit's primary demands for paint saving, we reviewed the performance levels of the proposed technologies versus those used and presented the quotation as enclosed, based on the assumption of 35µ coverage, as requested, versus 45µ, thus difficult to measure. Jointly with ABB, we analysed the main steps of the painting programme and reaches the conclusion that an average frame could be painted in 25’ versus present 40’, thereby minimising cycle times.

Today, Smit Textile SpA automatically paints machinery in an average 25’ and cuts paint consumption by 35%, thereby simultaneously improving coverage and distension.
Sistema Iso-Flo  
 Advantages
Adding the ISO-FLO system instead of an isolated one as proposed as an alternative also enabled Smit to:
• Recover the entire paint hall and use existing piping with reduced investment costs; the ISO-FLO system in fact enables reducing plant insulation and recovering all existing equipment. This indirectly allows operators to perform paint top-ups even during normal operating steps, operation otherwise impossible with an isolated plant, thereby eliminating machinery down time caused by such jobs.
• Increase overall plant safety, as the ISO-FLO system is EC and Factory Mutual certified, unlike the alternative isolated plant proposed that only has self-certification.