Europe, OEM coatings businesses can
achieve higher revenues only by providing added value. Often this can only be
realized by contributing to the innovations and initiatives aimed at pushing
down costs and raising efficiencies.
New car registrations in the European
Union and non-EU Western European
states such as Norway and Switzerland
went down by almost 8 percent to 12. 5
million last year, according to market researchers PwC Autofacts.
This was the fifth successive decline in
new car registrations in the region so that
demand is still 3. 5 million units below
what it was in 2007. PwC Autofacts is
expecting a small recovery later in 2013
but this will not be sufficient to prevent a
further decline of 1.2 percent in registrations this year.
Nonetheless, drops in demand in
countries like Germany have been partly
offset by strong export sales in markets
outside Europe. In the UK both sales and
production increased last year because of
exports to non-European regions, especially of premium cars.
One of the attractions of the
European automobile sector to coatings producers and their raw material
suppliers is that a strong presence in the
region’s OEM segment offers opportunities for sales stimulated by demand outside Europe. European car companies,
especially the leading German manufacturers Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW
with their ranges of global brands are
not only big exporters but also builders
of new plants in high growth areas like
the Asia Pacific.
However, with demand shrinking in
Europe and intense price competition
from domestic OEM manufacturers in
the emerging economies, car companies
in Europe have to continue to slash their
own production costs. “Automotive
companies (in Europe) have trimmed any
remaining fat and are now cutting into
the bone to sustain their business operations,” said Giorgio Elefante, PwC automotive partner.
With paint shops the biggest cost is
energy. A conventional paint shop can
account for as much as 70 percent of
a car plant’s total energy consumption
and of gas 92 percent, according to
the figures from Durr AG, the German
global leader in paint shop installation
and engineering. Another high cost factor is the levels of wastage of paints and
other raw materials.
“European car
companies...with
their range of global
brands are not only
big exporters but
also builders of new
plants in high growth
areas like the Asia
Pacifc.”
As a result, innovations in paint
shop technologies have been primarily
aimed at reducing energy consumption
and waste. These are being achieved
by improved pretreatment and elec-trocoating technologies, such as a full
rotation of the car body in the dipping
tank, less use of drying ovens, more
separation and collection of solid particles and greater use of robots and
automatic atomizers for electrostatic
paint applications.
While car manufacturers have been
announcing plans to close plants in
Europe because of overcapacity in the
region, many of the remaining ones are
having or will have their paint shops re-built or refurbished.
In the first nine months of last year,
Durr’s sales went up by 44 percent in
Germany and 32 percent in the rest of
Europe, whereas in the rest of the world
they dropped.
“Most of the increase in sales in
Europe last year has come from engineering and equipment for paint shops,” explained Gunter Dielmann, Durr’s investor
relations manager. “We don’t expect such
a strong year in Europe in 2013 but over
the next few years the paint shop market
will remain stable in the region because
the trend is towards cutting the cost of
painting cars through the modernization
of application technologies.”
Coating producers have been
strengthening their contribution to the
improvements in these technologies
through new innovations in integrated
processes, which reduce the number of
paint layers requiring drying.
PPG Industries has introduced a system that eliminates the need for a primer
by enhancing the properties of two layers
of basecoat without requiring a heated
flash-off zone in between. Another innovation allows wet-on-wet applications of
primers, basecoats and clearcoats without any flash-off zones in between.
BASF Coatings has been investing in
electronic equipment in its R&D centers
to enable it to replicate the widening
range of automatic equipment in OEM
paint shops. It has been introducing at
its European R&D units a new paint application robot whose control software
has been developed by BASF itself. “(It)
simulates nearly any situation at paint-lines all over the world,” says Walter
Jouck, head of the company’s coating
technology management.
It has also been forming research partnerships for making innovations and raising efficiency. It has a joint venture with
Henkel AG & Co KGaA, Dusseldorf, to
develop improvements to metal pretreatment and dip coating processes.
BASF has recently completely a study
with Durr on the eco-efficiencies of car
coating processes so that the two compa-
nies can work together to raise the eco-
efficiency of individual paint shops. “The
conditions and the impact factors at the
car manufacturers and their plants vary,”
explained Alexander Haunschild, BASF’s
head of OEM Coating Solutions Europe.
“There is no standard answer to the ques-
tion as to which process is best.”
What is certain is that in the future
car manufacturers in Europe will want
the lowest possible costs while achieving
the highest possible quality and eco stan-
dards at its paint shops. CW
