Speed and Accuracy – The benefits of painting automation for Boeing

Robots have been used by the aero­space indus­try for years, and now, they are being uti­lized more than ever because of their speed and accu­ra­cy – the two main ben­e­fits of paint­ing automa­tion.

Accord­ing to a June 2013 arti­cle on Robot​x​world​.com, Boe­ing is using robots to paint the 166-foot wings on the 777 air­plane. While this process takes human work­ers up to four and a half hours, robots can have it fin­ished in 24 min­utes. This kind of speed is one of the more attrac­tive ben­e­fits of automat­ing the paint­ing process.

Anoth­er ben­e­fit of paint­ing automa­tion? Lack of over­spray. Since the robots are accu­rate and pre­cise, they do not waste a lot of paint. As a mat­ter of fact, not only do they not waste a lot of paint, they also use less paint on the object. The arti­cle stat­ed that since Boe­ing made the switch to paint­ing automa­tion, the amount of paint on each wing has been low­ered by 70 pounds.

A some­times unin­tend­ed paint­ing automa­tion ben­e­fit is the abil­i­ty to decrease the num­ber of work­ers need­ed on a paint­ing line. Boe­ing was able to reduce painters per shift from 30 down to 15. This saves pro­duc­tion costs. The labor­ers were assigned to oth­er tasks and no employ­ees were let go from Boe­ing dur­ing this reassignment.

With this speed and accu­ra­cy, the ben­e­fit of paint­ing automa­tion, in a nut­shell, is sav­ings to the man­u­fac­tur­er. Man­u­fac­tur­ers can reduce pro­duc­tion costs while increas­ing pro­duc­tion, which gets the prod­uct out to the con­sumer faster. This sav­ings may even be passed on from man­u­fac­tur­er to consumer.

For more infor­ma­tion about the ben­e­fits of paint­ing automa­tion with Robots​.com, con­tact us today online or at 877−762−6881.