Thierica Equipment Company recently completed another successful installation of a custom robotic paint machine. This machine was built for The DECC Company,a local Michigan company that excels in applying custom engineered coatings.
DECC presented a significant challenge that required Thierica to draw upon the vast experience of their 65 years in the business. Everyone at Thierica pulled together to complete the project on time and on budget. The final system included several new innovations developed by Thierica including a quick change end of arm tool that allows very fast gun changes.
The initial challenge was to design a system that would hold very tight film build tolerance on the inner and outer surface of the parts. The clear solution was to utilize a 6-axis Paint robot to ensure repeatability and offer a stable process. Working with the paint supplier, the processing parameters were established which allowed Thierica to develop a layout for the potential system. After all parties agreed on the layout, the proposal was written, presented to DECC, and the order was placed.
The next challenge was the timing. The end customer- a heavy equipment manufacturer, needed to get its products to market as soon as possible. Due to the number of different part sizes and shapes, the project required many robot programs to paint the many different parts. This typically would take place after the machine is installed but at Thierica we offered an alternate solution that ultimately saved weeks of programming time.
In a parallel effort to the manufacturing of the system, Thierica installed one of DECC's robots in our Paint Lab booth to simulate the final machine design. Lisa Mueller (DECC Engineer) and Erik Swift (Thierica Robot Tech) then spent many hours completing the validation and capability study. The robot programs developed during this time were transferred with the robot into the machine. This decision shaved up to 4 weeks off the end of the project schedule allowing DECC to meet their customers expectations.
"Thierica really worked hard to meet our goals for the overall machine design and implementation. The DECC Company has exceptionally high standards and Thierica not only met them but surpassed them time after time."
Lisa Mueller - DECC
At Thierica, we understand the challenges of a product launch and we know that our customers must be successful before we can be successful. Purchasing a new paint machine should not be a stressful experience. Give us a call and let us show you how easy it can be.
Dave Kooienga
Sales Engineer
Thierica Equipment Company
616-453-6570 x257
We have devoted ourselves in finding excellence in uniqueness, believing that if you do it well, others will respect that and come to you. This is exactly how we landed our latest and greatest challenge, with a major Heavy Truck manufacturer. Of course there is always a catch, we needed to develop an automated application process, which we currently did not have, and we needed to have it designed, developed, and in our plant in just a few short months. In order for us to tackle the technology needed to help develop and build this new application process we knew that we needed to partner with a company that had similar values as ours, and Thierica Equipment Company met the challenge in every way. They bent over backwards to give our team access to their people and facilities, and completely partnered up with us to the point where our Engineering Manager was at their facility more than she was here at Decc. I am proud to say that thanks to the great team at Thierica, we should be ready to line off our new, twin robot coating line by the end of this month. 
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