In the middle 2019, Automobili Lamborghini opened a new paintshop at its plant in Sant’Agata Bolognese, in the north of Italy, specifically for its Urus Super SUV. It describes the facility as bringing the principles of industry 4.0 (i4.0) to automotive painting, and as the ‘first in the world’ to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to that application. The aim is to satisfy stringent demands for both painting quality and versatility, allowing customers to specify vehicle colours from an ‘infinite’ range of options.

Those objectives are confirmed by Ranieri Niccoli, chief manufacturing officer of the company. “The key feature of our new paintshop is total flexibility related to both the products and the paint processes,” he states. “This allows us, for instance, to paint both the body and also hang-on parts in one line to ensure perfect colour matching between all parts. To make this flexibility happen, all equipment, such as workstations and ovens, is used in a modular way by different processes in an optimised space.” 

As Niccoli further explains, the basic configuration of the facility as well as the technologies it employs contributes to the overall strategy. “There is no strict line flow nor a predefined, fixed sequence of process steps and workflows,” he says. “Instead, a dedicated sequence and flow is created for each specific customised car configuration”. As such, he continues, “there are no lines but single manual and automatic workstations, which allow complete flexible operation times related to the specific work content and process needed for a particular vehicle.” 

One capability this facilitates is that a car body can be run multiple times through the paint lines to enable the application of multi-layer paints in support of vehicle customisation…