Suppliers Cooperate at USCAR's Experimental Paint Facility
26 June 1998
SUPPLIERS COOPERATE AT USCAR’S EXPERIMENTAL PAINT FACILITYWIXOM, Mich -- When ABB Paint Finishing, Inc. was asked to help build an experimental paint facility for USCAR’s paint consortium, they didn’t expect to be working with other paint technology suppliers.
But that’s exactly what happened at USCAR’s clear coat powder paint prove-out facility in Wixom, Mich.
As joint research efforts between the domestic automakers continues, other research partners, such as ABB Paint Finishing of Auburn Hills, Mich., a supplier of paint finishing and automation technologies, are learning that collaboration means changing old ways of doing business to help advance industry initiatives to better respond to the needs of consumers, society and the environment. At the Wixom project site, ABB is helping to develop environmentally-friendly, clear coat paint processes. Rich Pearson, a member of USCAR’s paint team, said, "Suppliers involved with USCAR and the PNGV efforts now have to look beyond their own walls. Years ago, Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors learned to change the way we thought about cooperating with our competitors. Now suppliers working with us are learning to do the same."
Suppliers of both material and application paint technologies needed to work together from the beginning of the project, added Pearson. Normally, suppliers work independently to meet the domestic automakers’ specifications, but for this project, the technologies are being jointly developed with the involvement of paint materials, facilities, and equipment suppliers. This cooperation between suppliers required a "systems approach" for the design and implementation of the clear coat powder paint facility.
The facility, a $20 million addition to an existing Ford manufacturing plant, opened in 1996 to study ways to reduce or eliminate emissions from paint sources during the application of automotive clear coats. Clear coats add luster and shine and protect the paint from chipping and fading. Currently, solvent-based clear coats are used to paint vehicles. The solvents are consequently released into the atmosphere as the paint dries, and the over-spray from liquid paints must be collected and hauled away to landfills. A powder paint contains no solvents; additionally, the overspray may be reclaimed in hoppers and re-applied, thereby reducing waste and decreasing the environmental impact of automotive painting processes.
The USCAR paint consortium was formed to conduct joint research and development programs on paint-related technologies to reduce or eliminate solvent emissions from automotive painting systems and to accelerate the commercial availability of low emissions painting technologies.
