Four-year results with a Volumetrix Fluid Dispense system at Freightliner truck plants in Cleveland, OH and Mt. Holly, NC indicate both significant reductions in repaints as well as a reduction in color-match issues at those plants. Mike Darminin, senior process engineer for DuPont, which supplies paints to those facilities, estimates productivity has been increased by over 50% with repaints reduced by 16% at Cleveland and slightly less at Mt. Holly.  
    
Increased productivity is due in part to color accuracy problems that are a fraction of what was encountered with the [mix] system that preceded the Volumetrix system. Matt Stratton, Freightliner Manufacturing Engineer at the Cleveland plant, estimates time spent on color-match issues has gone from “60% with the old machine to [approximately] five percent with Volumetrix.”
    
The system, billed by Generic Systems as providing “gravimetric accuracy with volumetric speed,” dispenses all tints and colors at once rather than one at a time as with a gravimetric system. “We can complete a dispense cycle in under three-minutes as opposed to 15-minutes with a gravimetric system,” said Brent Frederick, director of sales engineering for Generic Systems.
    
Frederick said the system can also deliver accuracy within +/- 1% by weight on dispenses equal to or greater than five grams as well as accuracy within +/- .02 grams on dispenses less than 10 grams for most fluids.
    
A proprietary dispense control system which accounts for variances in fluid dynamics through the dispense cycle is at the heart of the system and its accuracy, according to Frederick. “Basically, the system control takes into account the totality of the fluid dynamics in this process and makes adjustments according. We are therefore able to dynamically control the accuracy of the dispense at all given outputs. This allows the machine to more swiftly dispense the color at accuracy measurements never seen before in gravimetric dispense systems with unmatched repeatability.”