Powder coating process-improvements using statistical and DOE methodologies

The current business climate challenges manufacturers of rotating machinery to reduce manufacturing costs while building higher quality products. Statistical methods are useful in process optimization. In order to minimize the variability and the level of defects of any manufacturing process, one must first determine the capability of the current process and identify the factors that might have an effect on the quality of the manufactured part. A series of experiments organized around the concept of design of experiments (DOE) are run which determine the factors that are most critical for improvement. Additional DOEs are run to optimize the significant factors and determine the optimum conditions under which the process should be run. In parallel, the variability of the process measurement techniques is defined to properly gauge the contribution of the measurement variance to the overall variability of the manufacturing process. This paper discusses the efforts to understand the factors affecting electrostatic fluidized bed processing of epoxy powder coat resins and the factors that must be controlled.