Monday, December 2, 2024
BJS has solidified its reputation as a key player in the competitive wood coating market through continuous investment in advanced technologies. The company’s most recent breakthrough involves a state-of-the-art wood coating line featuring soft-roller coating technology and UV LED curing from GEW. This innovation has doubled productivity compared to traditional lines using spray-coating and oven-drying processes.
Filip Linsbauer, Technical Manager at BJS Czech, shed light on the limitations of conventional spray-coating: “Conventionally we use spraying technology to apply several layers of the paint on the part. We had to run through the line two times and there was a lot of waste of the material along the way because of inefficiency of the spraying process. We were challenged by our customer to push the technology a little bit further, that was the reason why we defined the new setup of the roller coating line.”
Game-Changing Soft-Roller and UV LED Technology
Soft-roller coating combined with UV LED curing has addressed these inefficiencies. As Hana Kudrnová explained: “In the past, our main product, the components for it we had to pass four times to cover both surfaces with spraying technology, with spraying the base coat and then the top coat, but then we developed the technology of soft rollers using the 100% UV cure by the LED lamps… we are able to run it one surface in one pass.”
The decision to adopt UV LED curing over UV Arc curing was driven by energy efficiency and sustainability benefits. Linsbauer emphasised, “When we developed technology setup for the profile parts, we selected instead of conventional lamps, LED curing. We were looking for the right partner to help us with the implementation of LED.”
Through extensive testing with three different suppliers, GEW emerged as the top choice: “We wanted to do really thorough testing to ensure that we can achieve maximum speed and capacity without compromising the quality… and we found out that GEW was the best.”
Production and Sustainability Advantages
BJS has seen multiple benefits from LED curing. As Linsbauer explained, “With the conventional mercury lamps you see degradation and variation over time, which is of course affecting the quality of the products… With LED it is producing consistently much more flat output, which is ensuring that your quality is much more stable as well.”
Energy efficiency has also improved significantly: “LEDs can start and be switched off immediately… we can react almost instantaneously to these situations and stop the curing process, and save energy there. You cannot do this for conventional lamps.”
The company also reduced overall line consumption by 30% and minimised waste. “Our customer is really building their brand on environmental friendliness, so we follow with what we do here,” said Linsbauer.
Ease of Transition and Implementation
The transition to LED-curable paints was straightforward, thanks to support from paint suppliers. Linsbauer noted, “Conversion from the classical paints used for mercury lamps to the LED-curable paints was quite straightforward… Our suppliers understand the need to transition so they fully supported us through the whole process.”
The simultaneous adoption of soft-roller application and UV LED curing was made seamless through GEW’s integration services: “We found out that GEW was very flexible… so we just switch it on and it was running,” said Linsbauer.
Competitive Edge and Future Plans
Kudrnová highlighted the competitive advantage of the new technology: “We are the first one in our segment who are able to run it in serial production, so definitely this is our advantage… We are doing this to eliminate the energy consumption due to environmental reasons… we want to be leader and continue in this sustainable way.”
Linsbauer concluded with advice for those considering LED technology: “My advice to anyone who would like to step into LED curing… don’t be afraid, the benefits are there, there is some effort needed but at the end it will pay off.”
BJS’s innovative efforts demonstrate a commitment to sustainability, operational efficiency, and market leadership in the wood coating industry.
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