Fook Tin Technologies Ltd - Improvement of Emissions from Spray Painting
The Problem. Fook Tin Technologies Ltd specializes in the design, manufacturing, marketing and distribution of quality electronic products, in particular weighing devices. In 2002, the Company noticed an increasing demand for products with spray-painted top covers and load cell housing. At the same time, a new national air emission discharge standard (DB44/27-2001) was being introduced. In order to comply with the new requirement and increase efficiency and productivity, the Company decided to improve the spray painting process. Through automating the spray painting, which was previously done manually, Fook Tin could also provide a healthier working environment to its workers.
What was done? The Kaizen Committee (i.e. Continuous Improvement Committee) was charged with coordinating the system modification. Fook Tin invested about HK$ 700,000 in designing and building the new facilities. Key features of the new installation include:
- air scrubbers to collect mist from spray painting
- automation of spraying and drying by using sensors to control paint usage
- dust removal before air compression to minimize defect rate
- automatic speed adjustment base on size and spacing of components to be spray-painted.
The benefits. By keeping abreast of market trends and new legislation, Fook Tin has been able to respond proactively and develop suitable improvement programmes to tackle these challenges - in this case the foreseen increase in paint consumption and introduction of new air emission regulations.
The new spray paint system brings about handsome cost savings. For instance, paint consumption is down by 15%, and productivity is up by 167% for top covers and 542% for load cell housings. Defect rate is also down by more than 6%. The then new national air emission discharge standard was also met. (Click here for the performance data.) With the automation of spray painting and the installation of air scrubbers, a potential health hazard to workers is hence removed. In addition, less time and paperwork for procurement is now needed.