New case-history by OMSG-Officine Meccaniche San Giorgio SpA: new shot blast machine for the treatment of the surface of truck chassis, manufatured for the Italian company OMAR Rimorchi. We appear on the Italian magazine IPCM-Protective Coating.
The shot blasting is in preparation for next painting application. The shot blasting machine sold by OMSG is a Roller conveyor machine, with throughput passage 3000 (width) x 1500 (height) mm, with n°16 wheels patented by OMSG. This type of machine is also suitable for general steel constructions (components of bridges, viaduct, industrial and civil construction, earth moving machines, agricultural machines, special beams , and so on).
Investing in Technology and Quality: Omar’s Strategy
In a sector in which German giants are achieving excellent sales results according to the statistics of the Italian Association of the Automotive Industry (ANFIA), modernising their production plants and investing in cutting-edge technologies and equipment seem to be the only solutions available to Italian companies to establish and compete in the heavy vehicle market.
For this automotive & transportation special issue, ipcm® has had the opportunity to visit Omar Rimorchi Srl, an Italian company that has produced trailers, semi-trailers, and equipment for industrial vehicles for about fifty years. This firm’s core business also includes special and niche trailers, swap bodies and city trailers.
Since when it was established in 1963, Omar has focussed on continuous investment in resources and technologies and on customer satisfaction. In line with its mission, this company, based in the Marche region and with 80 employees, has recently taken two important steps: moving to a new location and renewing its production cycle by automating its surface finishing process.
“Having a large surface area where we could store our products was one of the main reasons that led Omar to move in the new plant located in Schieppe di Terre Roveresche (PU), covering over 80,000 m2. This transfer was also the starting point for renewing our production department,” states company founder and owner Marco Tonucci. “For this, Omar relied on two important Italian partners: OMSG Officine Meccaniche San Giorgio, specialising in the production of shot blasting and sandblasting machines, and Eurotherm, which supplies coating systems.”
The shot blasting process: a prerequisite for achieving the highest quality degree
Omar installed a new shot blasting plant (Fig. 1) in order to obtain perfect surface cleaning before coating. “Having already worked in the past with a shot blasting machine designed by OMSG and having been very pleased with the quality results achieved and the collaboration established, we relied again on this company based in Villa Cortese (MI, Italy),” says Tonucci
“About two years ago, Omar installed a continuous ow tunnel shot blasting machine with a horizontal roller conveyor designed speci cally by OMSG for cleaning metal structures that must be subjected to a subsequent coating process.”
The LAUCO 3015-16 system is composed of a loading roller conveyor, a central tunnel with a shot blasting chamber equipped with 16 turbines, and an unloading roller conveyor”, explains Giorgio Pozzi from OMSG. “After the carpentry and assembly operations, the metal sheets undergo mechanical pre-treatment through our shot blasting plant. The components to be treated are arranged on the loading roller conveyor (Fig. 2), they go through the tunnel where the shot blasting process takes place thanks to the 16 turbines located strategically to cover their large surfaces, and they leave the plant by means of the unloading roller. This is equipped with brushing and blowing systems for removing any metal abrasive residues and with a hopper for recovering them (Fig. 3).”
“One of the main features of the LAUCO system is the possibility to adjust the component’s forward speed to obtain the required finishing degree in one quick passage,” adds Giorgio Pozzi from OMSG (Fig. 4). “Finally, another peculiarity of the plant installed at Omar’s premises is that the loading and unloading rollers are on the floor. This translates into an advantage in terms of both space and operator safety, since the current legislation requires the use of laser scanner sensors as a safety protection.”
The coating plant and cycle
Omar powder coats trailers, semi-trailers, tow hooks, suspension systems, and chassis (ref. Opening photo). After shot blasting, these are directly coated without the need for any additional chemical pre-treatment. “Since we treat a maximum of 6 load bars per day, we chose to install a static system (Fig. 5) with a powder coating booth and a curing oven. Inside the large coating booth, the operator hangs the workpieces to be painted on the load bars, which are moved by an automatic conveyor controlled by a touch screen PLC. Here, a powder primer from the AkzoNobel dry-on-dry system is applied. The components are then takewwn to the curing oven where they undergo a pre-polymerisation process at a temperature of 160 °C. After this first phase, the parts go back to the coating booth for the application of the second coat of the dry-on-dry anti-corrosion powder system. The surface treatment ends in the oven, where the components are cured at a temperature of 200 °C (Fig. 6),” explains Tonucci. “After coating, the parts are moved onto a mask for the assembly of all the components required to complete our products, such as braking, electric, and pneumatic systems and accessories like suspensions and axles. Finally, we assemble the coated components to the bodywork. All these assembly processes are performed in different stations, each with a dedicated work team.”
Future projects
“The installation of these new shot blasting and coating plants is only the first step of our plant renewal plan.
The next phase will be the integration of a radio-controlled robot to automate the hanging of the workpieces to the load bars, thus eliminating the use of a bridge crane. Thanks to this system, which is still in the design phase, we will also eliminate the blowing phase after shot blasting, because the robot will tilt the parts, thus automatically removing any abrasive and scale residues.”
Cheaper, faster, and more efficient: the benefits of Omar’s choices
“We took advantage of our need for more space to store our products to modernise our plants and reorganise our production department. Moving from one site to another also brought a further challenge for us: the transition from liquid to powder coating. We are pleased with the investments made and the excellent results achieved. We have improved the quality of our products, because the powder coated products guarantee better aesthetic quality while meeting the surface protection specifications of our target market. We mainly focus on the Italian market, but 20% of our production is exported abroad. By choosing to use powder coatings, we have also halved our production time and costs. Finally, we have helped improve our employees’ lives, both by replacing the manual shot blasting process with an automatic one and by eliminating the solvent emissions of the liquid paints we used in the past,” states Tonucci.
Omar powder coats trailers, semi-trailers, tow hooks, suspension systems, and chassis. After shot blasting, these are directly coated without the need for any additional chemical pre-treatment.”
Polski