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The woodworking industry is somewhat unique in that most companies start out as very small privately owned enterprises established by craftsmen. The owners of these businesses are usually very good woodworkers and have good skills with the design and construction of wood products. As skillful as they are at manufacturing, they often have little or no training or skills in production finishing. From the very outset of the business, finishing is the least understood and therefore the most challenging department in a small business.
As the business grows, so grows the problems and headaches associated with the last process, the finish — the protective and aesthetic process that completes the product. The finish delivers the perception of quality to the customer. A beautiful finish raises the perceived value of the piece, while a poor finish detracts from the highest quality materials and construction.
The finishing room is typically described as the biggest bottleneck in the ability to get product packed and shipped to the customer. The largest factor contributing to the bottleneck is the inability to find and hire trained personnel. The lack of trained personnel also creates quality and consistency problems with the finish. Repairs of the finish not only slow the process to a crawl but also add very significant unplanned costs to the production order.
Traditionally, the finishing department consists of one or more open spray booths with workers manually spraying the various steps with hand-held spray guns and pressure pots. As the company grows, the method of coating application remains the same, but parts may be placed horizontally on a "pallet" conveyor or vertically hung on an overhead "monorail" conveyance. Many companies grow to be quite large with this finishing method until they reach absolute production capacity because of the slow and inconsistent method of finish application. Additionally costs have soared because of the poor coatings transfer efficiency resulting from hand spraying. At this point, automation of at least some of the finishing process must be considered in order to reduce the bottleneck, improve finish quality and get costs under control.
Automating the finishing room does not necessarily involve huge capital expenditures. There are several application machines and methods on the market that allow for planned expansion of automating the finishing process.
Parts two and three will deal with coating application using automatic spraying machines. Spraying is, of course, the most common method of finishing since it is not only the most versatile, but it is also more compatible with current hand-spraying techniques.
The next article will explore the various types of automatic spray machines, the benefits of automatic spraying, and the coatings most commonly associated with this finishing method. The following article will expand on the idea of automatic spraying and will add other automatic machinery such as panel cleaning and ovens that make up a small finishing production line or "spray work cell." While focused on spraying work cells, we will also review spray application of UV curable coatings since there is considerable misunderstanding in the marketplace associated with UV coatings.
Parts four and five will shift away from spraying to a discussion of two other popular application methods: roll coating and profile (moulding) finishing. These two methods, while not as versatile as spraying, have particular appeal as work cells since both exhibit very high production capabilities and efficiencies while keeping costs very low due to low labor requirements and very high application efficiency. Roll coating and profile finishing lines are easy to expand with minimal capital cost requirements increase. With these two application methods, a further discussion of UV coatings will be necessary since the chemistry and application characteristics of commonly used coatings with this machinery are quite different than with spraying.
By understanding and implementing these modern finishing methods, companies "on the move" will benefit greatly by reduced labor costs, reduced material use, reduced waste, reduced emissions, reduced work in process and reduced rejects. Corresponding increases will be in finish quality and consistency, increased transfer efficiency and, most importantly, increased productivity by opening the bottle neck in the finishing department. Production capacity will no longer be limited by the ability of the finishing department to process parts within the same time frame as capabilities of the other manufacturing departments. Finishing costs and accounting will improve dramatically using machinery that is fast and efficient. Oh, yes, by the way, finishing machines don't show up late (or not at all), have the flu, hangovers or attitudes.
author: Steve Ehle