Pioneering solutions for future-proof painting processes

(Image source: PaintExpo)

(Image source: GEMA)

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Digitization, Individualization, and Climate Protection are the megatrends that pose challenges for contract coaters and in-house painting companies. With around 500 exhibitors already booked by the end of December 2019, the upcoming PaintExpo from April 21 to 24, 2020, offers a solution that is unmatched worldwide. The portfolio of the world’s leading trade fair for industrial coating technology covers the entire process chain in wet and UV coating as well as powder coating and coil coating.

Improve quality, productivity, and sustainability, increase efficiency, and respond flexibly to different batch sizes and design requirements. These are the challenges faced by companies in the automotive industry, the investment and consumer goods industries, as well as in architectural applications and all other industrial sectors. It also makes no difference whether it concerns the coating or finishing of components made of metals, plastics, wood and wood-based materials, glass, composites, or other materials.

As the only global information and procurement platform for industrial coating technology, PaintExpo covers this broad spectrum of applications and tasks. This is confirmed by a look at the exhibitor list of the world’s leading trade fair, whose 8th edition from April 21 to 24, 2020, had already seen around 500 companies from 26 countries reserve their booth space by the end of December 2019. They already occupy more than 16,000 square meters of net exhibition space, surpassing the total exhibition area of the 2018 event. Industry giants are represented alongside innovative medium-sized and smaller companies. “This enables contract coaters and visitors from in-house coating companies to comprehensively inform themselves about the latest developments and trends in all areas of industrial coating technology,” explains Jürgen Haußmann, Managing Director of the organizer FairFair GmbH.

Focus on Automation and Digitalization

“Of course, solutions for the automation and digitalization of coating processes are also the focus of the upcoming PaintExpo. It is no longer just about automating individual coating steps, but about networking the entire process chain,” reports Jürgen Haußmann. Among other things, specially designed multi-axis robots and robot coating cells for wet coating and powder coating are presented. They combine the high quality and reproducibility of robot coating with a flexible and cost-effective solution that allows medium-sized and smaller companies to enter robotic automated coating. For programming the robot’s movement sequences, in addition to programs for manual teaching, efficient solutions for offline programming are now available. The necessary application technology is adapted to each project. New spray gun controls ensure very precise application. All coating parameters can be easily accessed and set with high accuracy – sometimes even from a smartphone or tablet. This also helps reduce material consumption and thus lower operating costs. Color preparation and transport, as well as dosing and color changes, are other areas that can be effectively automated and made more material-efficient through new developments. For integrating automated monitoring of process parameters such as coating amount, temperature, process gases, spray pattern monitoring, as well as for logging and analyzing this data, the exhibitors at PaintExpo also present innovative solutions that enable connection to the MES systems of plant operators. Systems for quality control of the coated surface can also be integrated into the process. When a defect is detected, a further new development allows for its correction through automated grinding and polishing.

Customization with Reduced or No Overspray

With the trend toward greater individualization, multi-colored coatings are increasingly demanded. The goal is to be able to coat without masking or with significantly reduced masking effort and overspray. Contributing to this are new developments for faster and easier masking, such as electrostatic application systems, which inherently cause less overspray. A completely overspray-free application solution, which is now in serial use for two-tone painting of vehicle body shells, is also available.

The complete range of exhibits at PaintExpo includes systems for coating in wet, powder, UV, immersion, and coil processes, paints for all procedures, application systems, spray guns and atomizers, automation and conveyor technology, cleaning and pretreatment, drying and curing, environmental technology, compressed air technology, air supply and exhaust air purification, water treatment, recycling and disposal, accessories, masking, measurement and testing technology, quality assurance, labeling, deburring, contract coating, services, as well as technical literature.