Production Manager Simo Sorjonen at the Raisio surface treatment facility is happy. A major investment project is on the final stretch and a new coating line soon ready for operation. The investment, made jointly with a customer, will double the facility’s surface treatment capacity while making it possibly the most modern paint shop in Finland.
– This is logic-controlled and a thoroughly modern, new system, says Production Manager Simo Sorjonen, presenting the new coating line at the Raisio surface treatment facility. – You don’t find these in many places.
The workpieces to be treated on the new Raisio facility line have a maximum length of 6 metres, height 2.5 metres, depth 11 metres and weight of 1500 kg. There are two painting chambers.
– The more unusual, meaning more difficult, pieces will be moved here from the other line, Sorjonen says.
– Compared to the older line, there are many improvements. For example, the washing unit is attached directly to the line, allowing us to wash the hulls with a pressure washer, if necessary.
The most significant improvement is in automation.
– The basic operation may look like any other coating line, but there is a lot of automation in the background. We are part of the company’s IoT pilot project. Automation gives us real-time data on where the workpieces are moving and their environment. We get very detailed and high-quality data on every phase of the surface treatment process, which we can share to the customer. This data allows us to ensure that the surface treatment is made correctly, meeting the customer’s criteria.
Testing of the new coating line began in the spring, and it will be operating at full speed in early summer.
– First we need to ensure that everything is working as planned. Then we can start to serve companies in the area in a multitude of ways. Although the line investment was made jointly with a customer, the idea has been all along to serve other companies as well.
JOINT INVESTMENT WILL BENEFIT BOTH PARTIES
By customer, Simo Sorjonen is referring to Cargotec. Or more precisely Hiab, the main customer and partner of the Raisio surface treatment facility, whose products under the Multilift brand are being surface treated at the facility. The companies agreed that, in order to develop production, more capacity was needed, and so the idea of a joint investment came about.
– It is quite exceptional for a company to add capacity to a paint shop that it has outsourced to us. But we both firmly believe that this cooperation and investment will benefit both companies. We have already developed our operations earlier, for example by switching to a different coating system, Sorjonen says.
