Automation systems are found in a variety of industries — printing, packaging, glass bottle manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and food processing to name a few. These industries require specific coatings for processing components such as guide rails, rollers, hoppers, vibratory feeding bowls, troughs, sealing equipment, and much more.
KECO offers a large portfolio of coatings that can benefit our customers’ equipment as needed. Our customers have reached out to us for solutions for part protection and sound deadening in their automated process as well as help with efficiency and less downtime by providing nonstick coatings for adhesive, ink equipment, and rollers.
Nonstick coatings allow for cleanup to be much easier and cut the time the equipment needs to be removed, which allows the customer to run more of whatever they may be building or manufacturing. KECO applies Teflon coating to rollers in the printing industry to help films or adhesive-back labels be pulled through the system and then released so the web doesn’t have lag in it. KECO also offers dry film lubricant coatings that keep automated equipment running smoothly without having to grease certain areas and thermal barrier coatings that help protect products from high-temp exposure.
We also have Teflon coat ink pans that hold the ink used in printing. When our customers change over to another color, our Teflon coatings allow the operators to clean the pans in less time and not worry about color contamination. An example would be if our customers are running red soda labels and they switch to green soda labels, the color can be contaminated if any of the ink is left behind, causing the product to be rejected.
KECO has also used its Efex coatings for vibratory feeding applications where parts are vibrating on metal surfaces and the friction causes damage to the product, or it’s a heavier product and the noise is intolerable. A coating in this application can protect the product and help quiet the operation.
Another example is a combination of coatings for applications where there needs to be protection from high temperatures but also release so the product, like glass bottles, can slide easily and not be rejected for non-conforming shapes or imperfections.
KECO Coatings that are used within the automation industry include:
KECO 100 – Nonstick coating that allows products to slide easily and offers a low coefficient of friction.
KECO 500 – This product can replace having to continually grease moving components and allow the equipment to last longer.
KECO Efex – A great product with an almost rubbery type feel that allows parts to be protected from direct metal contact and quiet the application by creating a barrier for metal-on-metal contact.
KECO 600 – A great coating for wear/abrasion resistance that can be combined with others from KECO’s coating portfolio to allow traction and release or wear resistance and release. This coating is also great in applications where the product is slippery like silicone and needs help being moved through the automated process.
KECO 400 – This coating is for high temp applications and provides protection for the product from extreme heat.
We always ask our customers, what they need the coating to accomplish. For example, if our customers are running medication vials and the vials keep getting stuck or the bottle itself is damaged, we can provide coatings to alleviate that. Can you imagine if pharmaceutical companies tried to sell injectable medication with ripped labels, or scratched bottles? Could they even sell it?
Or, what if you went to the grocery store and every ranch bottle label had different colors on it? Would you buy it? What if you open a package and half the screws were missing for assembly because those screws wouldn’t feed properly in the vibratory feeder? I imagine if a bag of tortillas wasn’t sealed correctly because the seal bar was worn out or plastic stuck to it people wouldn’t purchase it or even worse if the entire bag had ripped tortillas because the dough stuck to the press plate.
KECO understands the need for our customer’s equipment to run properly and efficiently for them to make a great product, and it’s our job to help them with coating solutions so that they can accomplish this.
For more information on how KECO Coatings can solve issues in automation, visit our website, email us, or call 800-336-5326.