With the doors of India well and truly open for automotive business and the economy showing no signs of slowing, new domestic and foreign automakers are entering the market, and established manufacturers are further enhancing their capacities to meet the constantly increasing demand. To try and service this market effectively, Taikisha Japan and Taikisha India is moving towards improving its technology and facilities to meet its automotive clients’ requirements and to work towards greater end customer satisfaction.

Recent alliance with Geico

Taikisha has recently formed an alliance with Geico, by acquiring 51% of Geico’s shares from the Geicofin holding company. Likewise Geicofin is expected to acquire a parcel of Taikisha’s shares within a year. This alliance will open up opportunities for both companies in emerging and BRIC markets. While Geico’s focus is principally on serving OEMs and suppliers headquartered in Europe and America, Taikisha’s traditional operational areas are further east; in Japan, Korea, and increasingly now in India. The alliance will result in the merging of the two companies’ skills and technologies such as Geico’s J-Jump, J-Flex, Dryspin, Dryscrubber and Taikisha’s Integrated Air shield and E-dip.

New manufacturing facility in Gujarat state

Taikisha India has established a world class manufacturing facility in Pune, where many types of paintshop equipment plus other precision (non paintshop) components are manufactured for automotive and non-automotive clients. The next part of the company’s growth strategy is the building of another manufacturing facility, in the state of Gujarat. As well as increasing the company’s overall India-based production capacity, this plant will also cater for future potential automotive clients likely to build plants in the region.

2010-2011 – a champion year

Taikisha has had a very successful year so far, winning new clients in India such as Daimler India Commercial Vehicles in Chennai where it installed a truck cab paintshop, Tata–Cummins Phaltan in Pune (engine paintshop), Kuka Automation Pune (material handling system), a facility at L&T Ltd and others.

Continuing relationships with existing customers on projects have included Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar B line plant, Nissan and Renault-Nissan’s Chennai plant, Toyota Kirloskar Motor’s new plant 2 for small cars plus works at Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, Yamaha India, Varroc.

Key features of a good paintshop include high productivity, compact footprint, cost reduction and successful environmental protection measures. Some of the company’s new technologies are:

The ILAS system - Impact Blast Washer (quality improvement)

Most coating defects are caused by deposits, which can be removed at the end of the ED line. If such deposits can be prevented altogether, the ED sanding zone can be eliminated.

On investigation these deposits are typically metal fragments, iron powder and fibers. The ILAS system has been developed for the removal of these ‘sputters’. In the phosphating area, defects can be reduced by 70% and this can be increased to close to 100% by introducing the ILAS system in the degreasing and ED processes.

No mist painting system (environmental protection)

For applications like sealing, undercoat and NVH deadening metal painting, instead of using an atomizing paint applicator, guns with slit nozzles are used; these do not produce any paint mist. This results in better paint transfer efficiency and can reduce paint costs by 20%. It can also contribute to significant reductions in cleaning and cut robot cover costs (using coverless robots where available). The absence of paint mist also results in a reduced need for exhaust facilities and a consequent reduction in running costs.

Heat Pump system between PT & ED processes (energy conservation)

In a conventional installation there is individual control of pretreatment (PT) temperature by using a boiler, and in electro depositing (ED) temperature control is regulated using a chiller. This can be modified, by using a heat pump system to collect the ED cooling energy, the energy discharged in ED can be collected in PT. Of course this system works most efficiently when the heating load almost equals the cooling load.

A similar heat pump concept can be implemented for air supply unit recycling. Also, in ovens having an RTO exhaust treatment system, generally the exhaust air is discharged into the air. However, since RTO exhaust temperature is stable it can be reused as a heat source for a pre-heat oven. This is a very effective measure for energy saving.

PCS Flow Control System (energy saving and quality improvement)

PCS pumps can be converted to direct electrically driven pumps. When combined with a flow control system, this results in high levels of energy saving, and also reduces paint deterioration. This system is switched by the car body position, triggering active colour pumps to operate in normal mode while other pumps are running in save mode. This is achieved by inverter control of the electrical pumps. This can contribute significant cost savings to a paintshop.

Lean and green initiatives set to grow

The company’s GT Division (Green Technology) focuses on all types of mechanical and electrical installations. These include plant set-up, industrial ventilation systems, clean rooms, applications set-ups and the supply of special equipments.

Customers to date have included Denso India Haryana, Unicharm India and Neemrana Rajasthan. This business is expected to increase due to the influx of Japanese companies entering the market in India. To effectively service this growing sector, Taikisha India will set up a separate organization.