Efficient cost-reducer
On 1 December 2006, at the Euromold trade fair in Frankfurt, Dörken MKS-Systeme GmbH & Co. KG, Herdecke, was awarded the German Material Efficiency Prize 2006 for its DELTA-PROTEKT® KL 105 microlayer corrosion protection system. The new material is intended for the coating of screws and other fastening elements, offering secure protection against corrosion and low spread of friction coefficients with just one product in two layers. For example, the coating of high-quality screws for use in the automobile industry can result in the realisation of considerable savings in material and time.
For those using the product, the result is a cost reduction of up to 30 percent.The prize for examples of best practice, endowed with 10,000 euros, is awarded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, in particular for services in the field of material savings. "In the processing industry the share of material in total costs may amount to over 40 percent“, stated Dr Franz-Georg Simon of the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Berlin. Expenditure on the development and procurement of material-saving technology therefore often pays for itself within just a few months, as the savings tend to lie between 100,000 and over one million euros. This was one of the reasons why the Wolfsburg car manufacturer Volkswagen introduced a programme with the goal of achieving savings of five billion euros in material by 2008.
The fact that such savings can be initiated with the thinnest of coatings is proven by the award-winning microlayer corrosion protection system. With DELTA-PROTEKT® KL 105 a product optimisation resulted in a zinc flake basecoat receiving the additional capability of meeting the friction factor specified by the automobile industry. Until now, this was only possible in cost-intensive multi-layer systems. The coating is applied in just two stages, in a dip-spin coating system, before being annealed at a temperature of around 240° C. There is no requirement for an additional sealing to set the friction factor - the saving of a working stage, and consequential energy savings. In addition, the coating process also eliminates a time-consuming change of material, with no additional handling expense occurred. A complicated workflow is therefore redundant.
"As technology leader in our market segment we are constantly in search of improvements that we can make in quality and efficiency“, says Dr Gerhard Reusmann, Managing Director of Dörken MKS-Systeme. "With this system we have really come up trumps.“ The company anticipates widespread releases for the process as early as the beginning of 2007 from customers in the automobile industry, including VW. The Dörken stand at the Hanover Trade Fair 2007 will also focus upon DELTA-PROTEKT® KL 105, bringing a spotlight to the subject of material and cost efficiency in general.
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