Software Facilitates Direct Cost Comparisons

Liquid or powder? Spray to waste or reclaim? Is a system with fast color change capability the right choice? These are just a few of the many questions coaters often have when developing the most economical coating processes for themselves and their customers.

New software from Nordson Corp. (Amherst, OH), can help users with the decisions mentioned above and more. The company's nVision Tools lets users develop multiple interactive computer models for both powder and liquid coating lines to evaluate many options quickly and thoroughly and make decisions based on hard economic comparisons.

"The software lets users test the effect of any process variable on overall profitability," explains Ken Kreeger of Nordson's Industrial Coating & Automotive Systems division. "Detailed "what if"scenarios allow for various input data so users can input what they know in the most convenient format to help them make educated decisions."

An example cited by Kreeger is the decision to reclaim versus using a spray-to-waste system in a powder coating operation. "Using this model, we can experiment with virtually any number of scenarios, changing such parameters as number of color changes per day, work days in a year, line burdened cost, number of guns, pounds of powder used per hour, transfer efficiency and powder cost per pound," Kreeger says.

"Plant supervisors and operators may focus on factors such as transfer efficiency, but another key parameter, especially in plants where the value of goods sold is very high and the plant is operating at high capacity utilization, is lost production time," Kreeger adds. "The value of lost production can rapidly tip the scale in favor of any approach that maximizes the productive "up time" of the paint line."

Kreeger outlines the variables in several possible production scenarios. "For example, suppose your coating operation only does three color changes a day and works 244 days a year with burdened cost of $660/hr," he says. "Burdened cost is the cost of production downtime, and may range from $400/hr to as high as $4,500/hr.

"The systems have eight auto guns spraying 20 lb/ hour of powder with 50% transfer efficiency. Powder cost is $3/lb."

Plugging all these values into the nVision software, users would discover that a cyclone reclaim booth with 90% recovery efficiency and 10-min color change capability is the lowest-cost option.