Every manufacturing operation that produces finished painted metal products needs to assess the benefits of using pre-coated metal coils or applying paint directly on the finished product. Epcon Industrial Systems pursued a feasibility study for a large automotive manufacturer regarding its transition from the painting of metal parts on-site to the coating of coils used for various automobile parts. Both the coil coating process and the post-painting of automotive metal parts are notorious for high thermal requirements in coater rooms, in-house spray booths, curing ovens and volatile organic compound (VOC) removal.
A re-engineered system with updated technology can not only increase the speed of the operations and output, but also improve the efficiency of the air pollution controls. This particular project objective was to design and assemble a new pre-painted metal production line equipped with a regenerative thermal oxidizer to remove the VOCs from the curing sessions. The client's initial perception of needed investments was highly expensive before Epcon's team proposed an integrated unit with optimized energy efficiencies and adequate process controls. This re-engineered process design would require minimal heat input with more than 85% thermal recycling throughout the system.