FOCUS ON TECHNOLOGY

FOCUS ON TECHNOLOGY

SPECIAL ISSUE ON AUTOMOTIVE

Quick Colour Change as a Growth
Strategy for a Coating Contractor
Gabriele Lazzari ipcm®

In order to expand and grow, coating contractor Sa.Ve.M. decided to broaden its target markets and treat
small components for the ACE and furniture sectors, as well as bicycle frames with different geometries. Inorder to quickly meet all customer demands, it chose Gema’s MagicCompact EquiFlow booth and OptiSprayAP 01 pumps with Smart Inline Technology to perform colour change operations in just two minutes andimprove finishing quality.

© ipcmGema’s MagicCompact automatic booth and OC07 powder management unit.

D© ipcm

Bicycle handlebars moved from the overhead
conveyor to the chemical pre-treatment tunnel.

ifferentiating its target markets can help a coating contractor

It therefore approached Gema Europe to cooperate on developing

to expand and grow. The key to success with this strategy is toan ideal solution, capable of integrating with its existing coating plant.

achieve the highest quality possible for all types of products

In March 2022, Sa.Ve.M.’s premises were integrated with a Gema

handled, regardless of their shape, size, coating specifications, andMagicCompact EquiFlow powder coating booth with Smart Inline

required finishes. This means that it is necessary to invest in flexible

Technology feed pumps and a Gema OC07 powder management unit,

technologies that can be easily adapted to the needs of different

aimed at enabling the coating contractor to improve paint penetration

customers and the characteristics of different parts without requiringand spreading, reduce powder consumption, and above all speed up

the installation of more than one coating line.

its whole production process, with colour change operations carried

Sa.Ve.M. (Borgo San Dalmazzo, Cuneo, Italy) is a coating contractor

out in just two minutes. “The market is changing rapidly and requires

specialising in bike frames. In 2021, 1,975,000 products were sold onvery tight delivery times. Over the years, Sa.Ve.M has always invested

the Italian bicycle market, with a 5% increase over the previous year

in new technologies to expand and respond to the new demands of its

for e-bikes1. This required the industry to produce numerous types

customers. When the our colour change and production speeds startedof bicycles (racing, road, mountain bike, electric, etc.), with different

to slow down our growth, we decided to take action to further improve

shapes, sizes, and aesthetic characteristics. Having decided to expand

our offer and provide all customers with a quick and high-quality

its product range even beyond, up to including components for theservice,” states Fulvio Giordano, the CEO of Sa.Ve.M.

agricultural machinery and school furniture sectors, Sa.Ve.M. initiallyencountered some difficulties in optimising its production flow, as

From an exclusive contractor to a flexible businessits spray paint booth required up to two hours for the colour change

Fulvio Giordano founded Sa.Ve.M as a contract coating company inoperation.

1996, when he took over a business specialising in sandblasting andliquid painting of bicycle frames from its previous owner. The company

https://www.repubblica.it/motori/sezioni/attualita/2022/04/14/news/la_febbre_delle_bici_in_italia_mercato_vicino_a_due_milioni_di_pezzi-345438184/

172N. 76 - JULY/AUGUST 2022 - international PAINT&COATING magazine

exclusively coated components for the Aurelia Dino brand (now DinoBikes), an international manufacturer of adult and children’s bicycles.

international PAINT&COATING magazine - JULY/AUGUST 2022 - N. 7673

FOCUS ON TECHNOLOGY

SPECIAL ISSUE ON AUTOMOTIVE

market research and asked for the opinion of many fellow coaters.
We then decided to rely on Gema, after listening to numerous
testimonials and acknowledging the professionalism demonstrated bytheir technicians in the initial phase of our collaboration. They listened
to our needs, visited our plant to study its layout, and finally identified
the most suitable technologies,” indicates Giordano.
The solution provided by Gema was the MagicCompact EquiFlow
rectangular booth, complete with a cyclone, eight OptiSpray feedpumps with Smart Inline Technology, two reciprocators, and a powder
management unit for quick colour change operations. The booth’sstructure, built in plastic, prevents powder from accumulating on thebottom and adhering to the walls, while its H-shaped design ensures
excellent air distribution and balanced suction. The reciprocators
are equipped with three nozzles per side and two hand guns at
each end of the booth for pre- and post-finishing operations. The

booth is also equipped with a gantry structure housing sensors forworkpiece recognition, which allows the powder coating process to beautomatically managed according to the type of part to be treated. In
anticipation of a possible need to further expand production, Gema’sbooth can also be configured differently in terms of size, air intake
volume, and number of guns and manual touch-up stations.
© ipcm

Sa.Ve.M. parts at the entrance to the coating booth.

© ipcmAutomatic powder coating.

The OptiSpray feed pumps with Smart Inline Technology, using asingle-channel circuit, generate a homogeneous powder flow andguarantee improved spray pattern management. Indeed, they allow
a precise quantity of powder to be dispensed, varying according
to the different application needs, while maintaining a constantThis is why it had installed five manual powder coating booths, one for

Sa.Ve.M.’s growtheach frame colour in the Dino Bikes range (i.e. red, blue, white, black,

The automatic booth was mainly used to paint batches of the same

automatic cleaning of internal circuits, the float, spray pipes, and sprayand fluorescent green).

colour. In fact, when a colour change was necessary, the machine hadguns. “Bicycle frames, which account for most of our workflow as

However, Giordano decided to expand the firm’s production capacity

to be moved and cleaned by an operator – which could take up toexplained, usually have a similar shape and never exceed 1,200 x 600

and target markets by starting to treat components of agricultural andtwo hours – while the five manual booths were used for coating. “Themillimetres. However, as our business’ expansion had also brought

food machinery, fans, and school furniture for small, local craft andamount of batches to be painted had undoubtedly increased, so muchnew customers, we needed to be able to adapt the flow of powderindustrial manufacturers. In order meet the different requirements of its

so that we were working on two shifts. Bicycles still accounted for mostdelivered to the size of smaller components with different geometries.

new customers, in 2007 Sa.Ve.M installed a four-stage cleaning tunnelof our workflow, but they were of different types. We treated frames andIncidentally, the sensors placed at the entrance of the booth allow(phospho-degreasing, two rinses, and final drying in an oven). Moreover,components for men’s and women’s bicycles, children’s bicycles, racing

the paint to be dispensed only when the workpiece is in the exact

with the aim of appropriately handling even components that required

bicycles, mountain bikes, and electric bikes, which had to be touched

position, thus also guaranteeing a considerable saving of paintmechanical pre-treatment, in 2010 it replaced the sandblasting plantup by hand. At the same time, some customers also supplied us withproduct,” notes Giordano.

inherited from the previous company with a semi-automatic rotarysmall quantities of parts for other markets, while others only relied on

hook shot blasting system supplied by OMSG - Officine Meccaniche San

us for one month a year. Therefore, our production was (and still is) very

Colour change in two minutes

Giorgio S.p.A. “The addition of new machines allowed us to differentiate

varied. Yet, our colour change operation, which was crucial to quickly“Thanks to the MagicCompact EquiFlow booth, Sa.Ve.M. is now able

our target markets. However, customer requirements continued tomeet customer demands, was difficult and time-consuming. This is why

to coat parts with a conveyor speed of 3.6 metres per minute, almostchange, and we were no longer able to meet all demands with our five

we decided to invest in a new automatic powder application booth,”twice as fast as the previous manual process, with which operators

manual booths alone. Therefore, we installed an automatic movablestates Giordano.

were not able to exceed 2 metres per minute. In addition, being in-booth with two reciprocators, equipped with three guns each,” explains

flow. The booth is designed for quick colour change operations andline and installed after the pre-treatment tunnel, Gema’s solution has

Giordano. “We thus grew and became more flexible, adapting ourGema’s supply

processes to the new parts to be coated.”“The positive experience we were having with our automatic boothalthough the speed with which parts are pre-treated and coated has

convinced us to continue investing in automation. We carried out

certainly increased, the most important aspect for us has been theenabled our whole production flow to be sped up as well. However,74

N. 76 - JULY/AUGUST 2022 - international PAINT&COATING magazineFOCUS ON TECHNOLOGY

SPECIAL ISSUE ON AUTOMOTIVE

thus attract new local customers. We therefore upgraded ourequipment and installed new machines to meet market demands.
However, colour changes continued to be a problem. That is why
our collaboration with Gema has been so fruitful. The decision
to rely on them has proved to be a winning one, because theylistened to our requests and designed together with us the mostsuitable solution for our production process: a state-of-the-art
dense phase system,” states Benvegnu.
“In addition, their SIT technology has enabled us to improve
our final quality degree and reduce the time needed for quick
colour change operations. In turn, this has increased ourturnover, improved the healthiness of our working environment,and decreased powder consumption. Our investment paid off
handsomely and we solved all the issues we were previously
encountering. In fact, we could say that Gema’s booth has actually© ipcm© ipcmWorkpieces leaving the coating booth and the OptiSpray AP 01 feed pumps with Smart Inline Technology.

caused us some positive problems, because our shot blasting© ipcmmachine is no longer suited to our new production rates and wewill soon have to install another belt machine,” Giordano jokingly

Coated furnishing components ready to be shipped to the customer.

concludes.
extreme speed of the colour change operations, which previously

and powder consumption has decreased.”slowed down our entire workflow,” says Giordano.

“Previously, it was sometimes necessary to work on two shifts in order

In fact, the company had experienced several difficulties in optimising

to carry out all the necessary touch-up operations so that our coatedits production rhythms due to the time required for colour changes.

parts met our internal requirements in terms of product quality.

“Our customers expect maximum production speed from us. We now

With Gema’s technologies, on the other hand, although our booth isperform four colour change operations per shift, in order to fulfil all

equipped with two manual spray guns, we have never had to carry out

orders as quickly as possible. With the previous booth, as mentioned,

any touch-up. The productivity rate attained enabled us to discontinue

we had to spend a lot of time cleaning between colour changes, which

the previous automatic booth and two of the five manual booths. We

slowed down production. On the other hand, Gema’s new booth iskept the other three for testing and sampling, but we no longer use

self-cleaning and it allows selecting between two different cleaning

them for daily production,” indicates Giordano.

modes for the powder management unit, the tank, the pipes, thebooth, and the cyclone: Fast and Quality. For example, if we have

A tailor-made solution for the needs of Sa.Ve.M.

to apply a tint that is similar to the previous one, as in the case of“Although the quantity of batches to be treated has increased, ourchanging from white to beige, the Fast automatic cleaning mode

cycle time has decreased and we now only work on one shift. Thanks

enables us to apply the new powder in just two minutes. Other times,

to our collaboration with Gema, we are now equipped with a compact

when we need to change to a very different colour, such as from red tobooth, which is installed in-line with the already existing pre-treatment

fluorescent green, we select the Quality cleaning cycle. In any case, wetunnel and curing oven and which has allowed us to overcome thenever exceed six minutes for a quick colour change operation,” pointscritical issues in our production process related to colour change. Theout Giordano.

MagicCompact EquiFlow automatic powder coating booth and Gema’s

Smart Inline Technology:
higher quality and lower consumption

USAGE
Cleaning
Descaling
Roughening
Sweep-Blasting
Deburring
Structuring
Satin ﬁnishing
Smoothingaddition to a considerable saving in powder, which was an incidental
requirement, Gema’s equipment also has made it possible to improve
our paint penetration and spreading rates, even on difficult-to-reachhas already given satisfactory results. “In addition to speed, the qualitysurface areas such as the edges of complex geometries, which causeof our finishes and the healthiness of our working environment havethe Faraday cage effect,” explains Giordano.

also increased,” notes Luigi Benvegnu, the production manager of“Many years ago, Sa.Ve.M. was the first company in the Cuneo area

Sa.Ve.M. “Gema’s SIT technology has brought us three advantages rightto use a powder coating plant, which accelerated our production

from the outset: powder penetration and spreading have improved,rate and enabled us to expand the range of parts we could treat andN. 76 - JULY/AUGUST 2022 - international PAINT&COATING magazine

BLAST MEDIA

other technologies were the ideal solution to solve our problems. InAlthough it has only been installed for four months now, Gema’s booth76

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A D VA N TA G E S
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Reduced machine wear
Less dust and waste
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