Variability Reduction of Electrostatic Powder Coating Process of Ceiling Fan Blades using Taguchi Methodology

Abstract

onsistency of Ceiling fan blades weights is essential to avoid unbalanced rotation of the fans. The unbalanced rotation of the fans can lead to poor performance, noise, and reduces the life of the final product. Variation reduction teams apply different techniques such as Design of Experiments (DOE) and robust design to enhance the efficiency and quality of the products by reducing the variability caused by production processes. This study focuses on reducing the variation in fan blades powder coating process. Taguchi method (TM) were applied on industrial setting for identifying the critical factors affecting the electrostatic powder coating process. The effect of powder coating parameters (gun stand-off distance and gun traverse speed, voltage applied and pressure) on coating thickness were studied to reduce process variability. The experiment was carried out to improve the current operating parameters. The experimental results were analyzed using Minitab 19 statistical package. Main effects plots obtained from the first experiments showed that coating thickness, the third level of voltage at 100 KV (L3), the second level of speed at 35 m/s (L2), the second level of distance at 300 mm (L2), and the first level of pressure at 2.5 bar (L1), result in improving the Standard deviation of coating thickness from 19.4 to 4.1 and the real capability of the process (Cpk) increased from a value of-0.21 to 0.52. Similarly, the process potential capability (Cp) was improved from 0.47 to 1.38. These values indicate that the electrostatic powder coating process achieved a great reduction in the variability. © 2022 Discovery Scientific Society. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.