The painting line at Bertrand, a manufacturer of high-quality windows and doors, was designed by Finiture, an Italian brand represented in Poland by ITA, in such a way as to best adapt to the current requirements and needs of the plant. – We wanted this investment to guarantee the repeatability of the perfect final effect while maintaining the highest possible production efficiency – says Dawid Kulon, organizational and technical manager at Bertrand.
Flexible adaptation to customer needs The Bertrand company from Luzin produces, among others: windows, doors, roller shutters, terrace systems and garage doors. The brand's portfolio is extremely rich, and high-quality wooden windows occupy a special place in it. Made of the best raw materials (pine, oak, sapeli, meranti, Siberian larch and many others), after the frame gluing and sanding stage, they are covered with appropriately selected varnish coatings. For this process to run smoothly and guarantee a visually attractive final effect as well as high quality of the coating, a technologically advanced painting line is necessary. That is why Bertrand decided to purchase it. - Thinking about this investment in a long-term way, we wanted it to be ahead of our current needs - emphasizes Dawid Kulon, organizational and technical manager at Bertrand. – We knew from the beginning that we primarily wanted a solution that would enable painting windows up to 4×3.5 meters in size. Finiture, with whom we have already had the opportunity to cooperate, approached our needs in a flexible and very open way, which resulted in the creation of a line tailored precisely to our requirements.
The robotic painting line at the Bertrand production plant is equipped with two circuits - for priming and applying a topcoat. The scanning system before entering the painting chambers is highly advanced, thanks to which the system prepares the window route in advance, in accordance with the selected and applied program. – An important advantage for us is the repeatability of high-quality final results, which can only be achieved by working on the most modern machines. Painting robots offered by Finiture eliminate the possibility of errors and shortcomings that are often encountered when using manual painting lines. Our robots have so many wrists that they can easily paint all the elements from every possible angle, laughs Dawid Kulon.
An extremely important advantage of the new painting line is the ability to quickly and efficiently switch paint colors. Those that will be installed in the pumps are brought up to the level of the valve strips in the robot arm. When one job ends and a new one needs to be started, there is no need for additional time to change the color, and therefore - there are no unnecessary downtimes, because the paint is changed while the next beam is being painted. It takes very little time, about 20 seconds. – This is a huge convenience for us, considering the fact that we currently have a wide range of colors. Customers value diversity, so we must provide it to them. Thanks to the solution designed by Finiture, all the employee has to do is prepare the appropriate paint in the pump, and the rest will be handled by robots - says Dawid Kulon.
Both robots are independent of each other and can operate in the same or two different programs. It is also worth mentioning that they work in a tracking system, i.e. the feed of the chain feeder is correlated with the pace of work of the robots, so painting takes place on the fly. There are no mistakes here - everything is done automatically.
Another very useful solution is a system for extracting moisture from the air circulating in the drying chamber. The same air is used again to dry the painted elements, and the efficiency of this line means that the windows do not need additional time to dry and downtime is avoided. The entire cycle lasts approximately 60-90 minutes, depending on the number of coatings, after which the painted window is transferred to the next stages of production, including: glazing and fittings. The new paint shop can paint approximately 100 double-leaf windows in one shift. – We launched the line a year ago and it works very efficiently – says Dawid Kulon. – For about 2 months after launch, service technicians from Italy came to us to adjust everything, which in our opinion could work even better and more effectively. It's such Swiss precision tuning. Today, with the knowledge they gave us, we are able to modify and fine-tune the robots' work cycles ourselves. And in case of any problems, we have the support of the Finiture service: we were assigned one specific technician who knows our line perfectly and how it works and can connect to it remotely, so he is able to help us immediately. It is very important that the service is also tailored to the individual client and open to all his needs and doubts. – I must admit that we are very pleased with our new investment. We have known Finiture for a long time, in the second plant in Luzin there were two painting lines of this company, which worked flawlessly. We hoped that this time we would be able to create a series of solutions together that would be configured to our individual needs, and that's exactly what happened. Thanks to the new investment, we can not only afford to paint windows effectively, maintaining the same perfect results every time in an even shorter time, but also efficiently test new types of paint systems - summarizes Dawid Kulon.
Source: Kurier Drzewny
Photo: Bertrand
