Mechanical stresses, wear through weathering, and heavy loads are the daily operating conditions of semi-trailers,
movable floors, and their equipment, such as tippers and tanks.
The world of transport expects maximum performance from these, including sturdy design and reliable finishes guaranteeing the necessary corrosion protection over time. Semi-trailers can exceed thirteen metres in length and
present considerably complex-shaped components and numerous weld joints.
These two characteristics, combined with the high-quality coating requirements imposed, significantly complicate the
painting process, which is traditionally carried out with liquid products and manual operations.
The sector of trailers and their equipment is also an important test bed for new coating products and plant technologies: for example, several companies switched from solvent to water-based paints already many years ago and the ones choosing the latter now account for the majority.
The transition from manual to robotic electrostatic application techniques and the digitisation of the coating process have been two further hot topics in the last few years, thanks to the incentives that have been offered to anyone
investing in Industry 4.0 throughout Europe.
These trends also correspond to the evolution of the paintshop of Menci, one of the main manufacturers of semitrailers, tippers, and tanks for the agricultural and industrial sectors. In the last few years, its production flow
has actually been revolutionised and its focus has shifted towards process automation, as evidenced by the recently
installed robotic welding stations. The revolution was completed in 2018 and it has been effective for about six
months now. It required the creation of a development team involving CMA Robotics (Udine, Italy) and Wagner SpA
for the application elements and Inver Sherwin-Williams for the fine-tuning of the water-based coating system.
Although not completely free of problems, the transition from manual to automatic processes was quick and easy: Menci has already transferred approximately 50% of its semi-trailer coating operations to the automatic booth.
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