Paint-and-go

GKN Wheels is investing £1m in powder paint technology at its off-highway wheels production plant in Denmark as part of a drive to optimise quality and hasten deliveries to European customers.

According to GKN, painting is typically the last process in the production of off-highway wheels.

Before the paint can be applied, the wheels need to be pre-treated with an electrocoat in order to improve salt-spray resistance and reduce weather corrosion.

Using the innovative powder paint technology, GKN believes it will be possible to apply the required paint colour and electrocoat in one single process, significantly reducing the time it takes to prepare wheels for distribution.

Brett Griffiths, engineering director at GKN Wheels, said: ‘We are constantly looking for ways to improve our service.

‘Investing in this new paint-and-go technology effectively means we can apply two high performance finishes in one and this will bring significant efficiency improvements.’

The new technology will be operating at GKN Wheels’s plant in Lunderskov, Denmark, in May and there are plans to introduce a similar system at GKN Wheels in China in the next few months.

The technology will eventually be rolled out to all other GKN Wheels manufacturing sites in the UK, Italy and the US.