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30 POWDER COATING, June 2016 Operational audits: The best path to improving a powder coating process Nick Liberto, P.E. Powder Coating Consultants, div. of Ninan, Inc. O perational audits can root out areas where you can improve your process and become more prof- itable and efficient. Furthermore, oper- ational audits can find root causes of fin- ishing defects, improve operator training, and help achieve higher pro- ductivity, all important in today's com- petitive marketplace. What constitutes a complete operational audit? An audit should evaluate every piece of equipment individually and the coating process in total to ensure that all areas of improvement are exposed and recorded. Furthermore, an audit should evaluate how efficiently the coating process is in- tegrated into the overall manufacturing process at the subject facility. Beyond evaluating the equipment, the operators, line management, engineering support, maintenance activities, spare part inven- tory, consumable material storage, envi- ronmental issues, and safety issues must be evaluated in a comprehensive opera- tional audit. National safety code viola- tions are brought to the attention of the client along with recommendations for corrective action. Material handling equipment (convey- ors, carts, racks, hangers, etc.) must be evaluated for stability, suitability for purpose, structural integrity, ground- ing, sprayability, part drainage, ease of use, and product density to ensure pro- ductivity goals. Pretreatment systems must be evaluated to ensure that they prepare the products to the stated coat- ing performance requirements. Spray and recovery equipment must be evalu- ated for safety, efficiency, productivity, and efficacy. Cure equipment must be checked to determine that all coated products achieve the required coating performance objectives in a safe and ef- ficient manner. The entire coating process must be eval- uated for how well it achieves the in- tended production goals with a man- ageable defect rate in a productive, cost efficient, safe, and environmentally cor- rect manner. The operator's level of Guest Column Nick's Niche proficiency needs to be judged over the length of the audit. Are their activities driven by accurate knowledge of the process or by tribal knowledge groun- ded in folklore? Are the suppliers pro- viding the level of service necessary to support the operation and the products they sell the customer? This level of effort requires a lot of work and observation. Our experience has de- termined that even the simplest systems can take up to three days to perform a complete audit, while large, more com- plex systems require up to five days of ef- fort on site to collect the required data and properly test the equipment. What tools are required to perform an operational audit? A complete operational audit requires measurement of numerous perfor- mance parameters such as part ground, chemical ranges, water quality, operat- ing temperatures, coating characteris- tics, environmental conditions, electro- static performance, and airflow just to mention a few. Test equipment must be constantly upgraded and improved to ensure that all the accuracy certifica- tions are in compliance so that accurate data is measured and collected. However, having all the right tools is not enough security that you will end up with good audit information. You must have the knowledge on how to use these tools properly to obtain meaningful data. Furthermore, you must take nu- merous readings over the entire audit period to completely judge the opera- tion and provide useful information to the customer. For instance, just because one oven profile on the largest part shows full cure, does not mean that the lighter parts are not overcured. Taking the temperature and relative humidity readings in the morning does not tell you what the conditions are later in the day or if the air conditioning system is keeping pace with the heat load. You have to take numerous readings at differ- ent times to judge all the "typical" oper- ating conditions at a particular facility. The most important tool is skilled and expert observation. A practiced eye can tell if an operator is really executing their responsibilities properly or if they are just putting on a show for the ob-