A new priming painting shop is now being put into service at Scania’s cab manufacturing facility in Oskarshamn, Sweden. With the new paint shop, the technical capacity in Scania’s European production structure will increase from 60,000 to 80,000 truck cabs annually. About SEK 400 million has been invested in a lean and efficient production process.
Powder coating is a method with a very low environmental impact, since no solvents are used. At Scania in Oskarshamn, this method was introduced 20 years ago and has been continually developed and refined ever since. At the new priming paint shop, only two percent of the powder used is wasted.
The new priming paint shop is housed in a five-storey building with a total area of 5,000 sq.m. At the production facility, cabs are pre-treated through alkaline degreasing and rinsing, and after that phosphatising, rinsing and drying occur before the primer is applied in powder form and finally dried.
The construction of the new paint shop commenced in August 2012, and the alignment of the machinery and processes started in September 2014.
The cabs that are produced in Oskarshamn are delivered to Scania’s three European final assembly plants, which are located in Sweden, the Netherlands and France, and are included in the company’s exports of kits from Europe for local assembly.
Scania in Oskarshamn has about 2,000 employees. The operations are organized in five different workshops for sheet-metal stamping, body-building, priming and final painting and final assembly.