2026-07-28
A specialized metal parts manufacturer supplying components to major electric vehicle producers including BYD faced the challenge of meeting increasingly stringent coating specifications for EV applications. The supplier produces a range of metal brackets, mounting plates, connector housings, and structural components that require corrosion-resistant coating for long-term reliability in demanding automotive environments.
As electric vehicle production volumes accelerated, the supplier's traditional manual and semi-automated coating processes struggled to maintain the consistency and throughput required by automotive OEM quality standards. Key challenges included achieving uniform coating thickness on parts with complex geometries and tight tolerance requirements, maintaining consistent color and finish across production batches, and documenting coating parameters for IATF 16949 quality management system compliance.
The supplier's automotive customers conducted regular process audits and required comprehensive coating documentation for every production lot. Manual processes could not provide the level of traceability and parameter control that modern automotive supply chains demanded. Additionally, the growing production volumes from EV manufacturers were pushing the existing coating capacity to its limits, creating a bottleneck that threatened on-time delivery performance.
The component supplier invested in precision automated spray coating equipment configured for medium and small metal parts. The system featured multi-axis servo drive technology delivering sub-millimeter positioning accuracy, ensuring consistent spray coverage even on components with intricate geometries. Programmable coating recipes stored optimized parameters for each part number, enabling rapid changeover and documented process control.
The automated system's data logging capabilities captured critical coating parameters including spray pressure, flow rate, gun speed, and environmental conditions for every production batch. This data integrated with the supplier's quality management system, providing the comprehensive traceability that automotive OEM audits required. The intuitive control interface enabled operators to manage multiple part programs efficiently, reducing the training requirements and operational complexity compared to the previous manual processes.