VBG’s coating plant already met the stringent requirements of the automotive industry, with processes including blasting, zinc-manganese phosphating, e-coating, and powder coating. As part of the modernization phase, the focus was on upgrading the powder booth and its associated equipment. A new powder curing oven had been installed earlier, and a new oven for e-coating is also on the way.
Growing demands for more colors
The old system was built with four booths, each designed for a fixed color. Today, customers are requesting a broader color range - VBG now works with five colors, two of which previously had to be applied without powder recovery. That led to excessive powder consumption and long color-change times. With the new booth, color changes now take just three to seven minutes.
“Being able to switch colors quickly and recover powder for all colors will save us around 1,500 kilograms of paint annually. That reduces our environmental footprint and lowers costs,” says Lars Pettersson, Production Manager at VBG.
A year in the making
The procurement process began last summer, with three suppliers invited to tender. During the fall, two of them carried out test coatings on representative products. In the end, VBG selected WAGNER as its supplier.
“VBG chose to complement the booth and guns with an IPS Coating Center for fast and easy color changes. IPS is a fully automatic powder center that uses SFT (Smart Feeding Technology) to ensure a consistent powder feed. They also added our Energy Efficiency Package and combined it with a frequency-controlled final filter motor, which both reduces the energy consumption of the system,” explains Johan Lanka from WAGNER.
The new booth and all related equipment were installed during the summer shutdown. The project went smoothly, and production resumed right on schedule.
“We had built up a buffer of critical components just in case, but we didn’t have to use it,” Lars adds.
Less touch-up painting
Previously, VBG used tribo-charged powder guns. These have now been replaced by electrostatic guns.
“With the new guns, the need for touch-up work has dropped significantly. For instance, we used to manually touch up the inside of U-beams to reach the correct layer thickness - now that’s no longer necessary,” says machine operator Robin Nyberg.
In addition to the booth and guns, WAGNER delivered an integrated powder system that provides better process feedback and monitoring.
“We now have much better control over powder consumption for each batch, which makes cost calculations much easier,” says Production Engineer Anna Edlund.
24-hour turnaround
The Vänersborg factory has two production flows - one for cast components and one for laser-cut and bent sheet metal. This part of the production is highly automated. Both flows converge in the coating department, where lead time is just 24 hours. Most components are automatically placed into dedicated fixtures by robots in the machining cells. After coating, the parts go directly to assembly - the most labor-intensive stage of production.
“We couldn’t meet our short lead times or guarantee delivery schedules without our own coating operation. With this investment, we’re well prepared for the future,” Lars concludes.
Source: “VBG moderniserar lackeringen - 4 boxar blir 1” in Swedish trade magazine Ytforum (06/25), pp. 16-17
