Life has been really hectic in my neck of the woods these past few weeks with the installation of a fully-featured Paint Plant.
A space was cleared . . .
As sales have been pleasingly increasing year on year, it was decided the time was right for investment to achieve faster manufacturing turnaround while, at the same time, looking to further improve quality. An in-house Paint Plant was very quickly identified as the one area that would meet both of these criteria.
A Paint Plant isn’t a small piece of kit so the first challenge was finding the right place to locate it. By making greater use of just-in-time availability from our material suppliers we were able to free up pretty much the entire bottom wall of our factory in Basildon.
Then the assembly commenced . . .
First to be installed was the degreasing and phosphating unit.
Degreasing and Phosphating unit being readied for its first test . . .
Next came the Drying Oven and the Spraying Booth . . .
The Drying Oven and Spraying Booth were next . . .
And finally, the Curing Oven . . .
The Curing Oven was the final piece of the jigsaw . . .
Commissioning the Spraying Booth . . .
Once all of the units were in place we then undertook a period of stringent testing. We had to ensure that all of the services (water, gas and electricity) were up to scratch and that the relevant health and safety practices were strictly adhered to.
The ovens are very well insulated so you can stand next to them without any adverse effects. Once you open the doors you get an instant reality-check about the scale of their abilities. This isn’t something that is appreciated in the height of summer but I’m sure that manning the ovens will be a very popular role once the outside temperature drops significantly!
The Paint Plant is now up and running and can be seen in all its glory HERE.
