Fine finishing L.A.B.S. Method™, how to design processes.
Industrial finishing market, that one that goes beneath the surface, past the outer layers of paint, is a jungle divided in thousands of niches accordingly with each application. It is also often a pain because surface defects may affect performance i.e. fatigue, life or/and general visual aspect of the products that may look less interesting for a potential buyer.
Blasting in all variations is one of the most used, and wheel blasting is the real game changer in many applications due to its high efficiency; it has been originally developed to remove sands from castings – especially big castings - so it developed through ages in foundry environment. It is also named “sandblasting” because the very first material used was sand naturally available possible to source anywhere; the name is still in use today too.
Metallurgical evolution allowed to switch from sand to metal media, where the control of the sizes of the shots (or grit depending on applications) made possible finishings that were just a dream in the past; everything has developed from air blasting, while some wheel blaster equipment producers specialized on building machines to use the finest media available on the market and made the mass fine finishing something really convenient inside industrial production.
Main difference between the “gross” foundry blasting and the fine finishing is the final result, you can consider 3 parameters to understand if you are moving on this land: Media size below SAE S70, roughness (Ra and Rz) measured by micron, Almen A intensity in shot peening: if so welcome to the fine finishing.
What is the L.A.B.S. Method™? Lean Approach Blasting ShotPeening It is a method that focuses on the parameters needed on the products: it is possible to realize the fine finishing with a wheel blaster instead of using air blasting or other Opex not friendly systems to achieve the result. It is not to be considered as a protocol but mostly a guideline to ensure the result is fully achieved.
Is it a DIY Method? Nope, and for a specific reason named experience; if you rely on your skills these are limited to your plant and production; someone that has seen hundreds of plants all focused on specific targets has a broader vision to understand immediately which is the way to go; even in same applications just different plants may have different parts to process, so different setups sometimes requiring different media for each application. The reality is that developing a finishing process is a team job, where the consultant brings his own skills and the management gives the specific guidelines to make it real in a specific facility.
How to make it successful? Requirements:
Mass industrial production, where there is consistency in production numbers and its features.
Choosing the right equipment, in terms of layout and performance; Capex of a general blaster is a lot cheaper than that of a machine ready to work with the fine media.
Carefully checking the equipment to realize the settings available; today technology has a lot to offer, Lean says what is needed and what is not. This would impact equipment costs at kick off and Opex later.
Testing, trials and again tests. It is far better spending few grand on a consultant and guided tests and start production with a decent setup rather than spend months doing adjustments based on guessing.
In the end, as stated above, it is a team job where if each one brings his own skills 1+1 is not equal to 2 but 11.
What is the goal of the L.A.B.S. Method™? Developing your fine finishing process with the best TCO possible including all the variables needed to give consistent throughput in terms of production process and economic impact.
What is the difference between the Vortex Method™ and L.A.B.S.™? L.A.B.S.™ is to develop new processes where they don’t exist today; Vortex™ is to fix and optimize what is already working today in your plant, from the equipment point of view.
How does the L.A.B.S. Method™ work? All starts with a call to assess what the application is and the target, followed by an onsite visit, which is a modest investment, to ground expectations and what is achievable in real, in a reasonable timing and at a reasonable cost.
Book your call here: https://calendar.app.google/gWAzso146qBunEp3A There are slots for each time zone and don’t worry, I travel worldwide.
