Celebrating 50 years of supplying state-of-the-art paintshop technology to the automotive industry, Geico has proudly inaugurated both new headquarters and Pardis Innovation Centre.
The Pardis Innovation Centre is dedicated to the development of green coating processes for the automotive industry. To this end Geico has set an ambitious target to introduce a “self-sufficient” paintshop by June 2020. Paintshops consume around 70% of electrical energy and 80% of heat energy used in vehicle production.
Painting a vehicle body produces about 235kg of CO2. In addition, the energy consumption of a paintshop processing around 300,000 jobs/year is about 250GWh. This is equivalent to the power needed by a city of 50,000 inhabitants.
The concept of a self-sufficient paint shop aims at cutting the energy used in this process. This project, being undertaken by Geico’s Pardis division, is dedicated to finding more eco-friendly and energy-smart solutions. One of the innovative tools installed at Pardis is the Interactive Engineering Laboratory (IEL). This models, on a one-toone scale, new plant technology by creating an immersive reality that allows re-engineering of the plant in real time in order to tailor it to meet the customer’s requirements.
Having developed paintshop solutions adopted by major car manufacturers, the innovation centre houses Geico’s new prototypes such as J-Jump, J-Flex, a new Hydrospin-plus, Dryspin scrubber, E3 booth and Dryflex. The centre’s goal is to continue to develop innovative, sustainable solutions for automotive paintshops.
Geico to deliver paintshop technology to Fiat Brazil
Fiat has awarded Geico the contract for the new paintshop at its greenfield development in the state of Pernambuco in the industrial complex of Suape. The new plant will cover an area of 4.4 million sq. meters and will have an annual production of 200,000 cars. Geico’s innovative technologies for eco-sustainability and energy saving, developed by its Pardis division, have been adopted for the new paintshop area.
Dr. Ali Reza Arabnia, chairman, president and CEO of the Geico Taikisha Group says: “Fiat Pernambuco represents a record for Geico in its history in terms of investment, and we are honoured that Fiat has chosen an Italian partner for this huge project in Brazil.”
Avtovaz, Renault-Nissan Alliance contract in Russia
Geico is the winner of a second contract at the Avtovaz plant in Togliatti, following the first one awarded in 2012.
The new complete paint shop, with the annual capacity of 300,000 passenger cars, is part of an important automotive manufacturing hub. Geico says it’s honoured and proud to be the first choice for leading, global car manufacturers who have awarded the company four important projects in the last 5 years (Renault-Nissan: Chennai, India, and Tangeri, Marocco; Avtovaz x2 in Togliatti, Russia).
A new challenge in Brazil: Ford contract
Following the award of the Fiat project in Brazil, Geico won the contract to install J-Jump body handling system for pre-treatment and catophoresis at Ford’s new plant in Camaçarí in the state of Bahìa. Again the difference was made by Geico’s world-class advanced technology.