Fast colour change booths and dense phase spray guns allow lean manufacturing, without using venturi pumps.

Founded in 1917, the family run Stenhøj Group has for generations manufactured automotive lifts, compressors, and hydraulic presses. Their experience obtained through many years has made Stenhøj one of the leading manufacturers within the industry. Since 1993 the Stenhøj Group has grown considerably and today consists of 13 companies of which 3 are associated, employing in total around 600 people in 6 countries, exporting goods to more than 80 countries worldwide. A common denominator for all Stenhøj products is high quality, long life and low maintenance costs. Their products are installed and operate in tough environments that mean that they have to sustain continual heavy wear and tear.

In 2007 Stenhøj Autolift A/S invested in a new advanced powder paint plant from Nordson. The installation, a ColorMax³ fast colour change booth, and Prodigy HDLV dense phase application equipment was delivered and installed, on time, in to an existing pit in the factory floor.

The new single powder coating booth replaced two existing powder coating booths that were operating with tribo friction charging technology. “The changeover from tribo to corona charging technology has been easy and straightforward” quotes Tage Holst Pedersen, paint plant supervisor, adding “we now operate the paint production at 50% of the maximum system capacity, compared to the old system where we could not achieve the right quality running at 100%. We use less powder and the operating costs per gun are significantly lower with the new Prodigy spray guns. We don’t even need to buy venturis anymore as Prodigy operates without them”.

Key to the investment for Stenhøj Autolift A/S is the flexibility that the new fast colour change system provides. Previously the operators rolled one booth offline for cleaning whilst coating in the other one. Although offline, each colour change would still take 1.5 hours, and meant that they had to arrange the production to suit the colours that were available in the booth. This arrangement became complex to operate and organise and meant that they had to stock products that they might not have manufactured or sprayed if it weren’t for the restrictions in the powder plant. The ColorMax3 booth allows lean manufacturing techniques to be implemented by Stenhøj Autolift A/S, such that they no longer have to paint products and then store them in a warehouse. The ultra fast online colour change time of the new booth allows production to be arranged so that they can paint very small batches or single items to the colour specification of each customers order. “The benefits of this are low inventories, fast time-to-market, and complete flexibility - we can coat anything in any colour whenever we need to” quoted Tage Holst Pedersen.

Additionally, the dense phase application equipment, Prodigy HDLV, provides process control for Stenhøj Autolift A/S by ensuring a constant powder output over time, as the powder pumps crucially don’t use venturi throats. “Prodigy provides us with a stable and consistent powder coating process, that is very economical to run,” stated Tage Holst Pedersen.