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PRODUCTS FINISHING — PFonline.com 21 steel drums for the holding and handling of dangerous products, especially for the chemical and petrochemical fields. DiFonzo couldn't detect from the naked eye what was happening with his plant's paint line, but he knew that it was time for some adjustments five years after Sames Kremlin of Plymouth, Michigan, installed the coating equipment Mauser uses to paint the millions of barrels it produces each year. "Nothing was obvious, but the applicators and I knew that maybe we needed to refresh how we were doing things and have a reset," DiFonzo says. Help from the Manufacturer It was the same thought process Sames Kremlin' Steve Romer, a senior systems application engineer, was going through. About a year ago, he came up with the idea of conducting "performance audits" on systems that Sames Kremlin had installed in plants within the previous few years, with hopes of fine-tuning operations and improving performance. "I have seen over the years where there has been a natural drift from the original settings and procedures that were put in place when equipment is installed," he says. "Equipment gets a little bit old, and an operator might start making changes. But often those changes lead to a decrease in transfer efficiencies that no one wants to happen." Sames Kremlin had installed a bevy of high-tech equip- ment at the Mauser plant, including 12 AVX Automatic Airmix spray guns, six Flowmax pumps, 12 Ad-60 paint heaters, five CTM color changers, five Gold Top fluid pressure regulators, a secondary heat transfer system and a system controller. All this equipment is very high-tech and efficient, but only if the proper settings are followed and practiced, Romer says. "It is really good equipment, and we always make sure that we fine- tune it specifically to the appli- cation of the customer, which it was five years ago," he says. "But things had changed, as they always do." Corrosion-Resistant Process Founded in 1896 and headquartered in Bruhl, Germany, near Cologne, Mauser has a worldwide market presence, boasting more than 60 locations in more than 30 countries and serving international companies in the chemical, petrochemical, pharmaceutical and food industries. Mauser was applying more than 60 different colors of a PPG liquid coating to its steel barrels and lids. The company had pioneered the triple-seam and W-shaped rolling hoop design for strength and durability of its barrels, and had gained huge amounts of market share because of its innovative designs. In fact, Mauser touts its steel drums not only as a robust and reliable rigid packaging solution, but also as one that can be visually customized with decora- tive painting, making the drums a preferred choice in multiple industries, the company says. Mauser touts its steel drums as a robust and reliable rigid pack- aging solution. Sames Kremlin has installed a bevy of high- tech equipment at the Mauser plant, including 12 AVX Automatic Airmix spray guns, six Flowmax pumps, 12 Ad-60 paint heaters, five CTM color changers, five Gold Top fluid pressure regula- tors, a secondary heat transfer system and a system controller. IN-TUNE EQUIPMENT