The Surface Award recognizes outstanding developments from across the industry in surface treatment and finishing technologies. According to the expert jury, Flowsense's most notable achievements were increased productivity, powder savings, improved quality and reduced carbon footprint.
With Flowsense, WAGNER has succeeded in controlling the powder coating process in a reproducible manner, thus achieving consistently high surface quality. In a nutshell: "PUT QUALITY ON REPEAT".
Compared to liquid paint coating, the powder coating process has so far been more of a blind flight in terms of powder feeding, where the set output quantities were neither known nor constant over the medium term due to wear and other process parameters. Users have compensated by accepting higher tolerances or more frequent manual inspections - not a good situation!
Flowsense, on the other hand, acts as an autopilot in the powder coating process, automatically navigating the coating process and leading to better coating results. This frees the operator to focus on other tasks. Learn more about how Flowsense saves resources in terms of powder, CO2, and making work easier: Flowsense: Digital intelligence in powder coating | WAGNER (wagner-group.com)
Picture above (from left to right): Christian Stephan, Michael Topp and Cornel Fuchs, who represented the Flowsense team in Stuttgart. Photo: J. Wagner GmbH
The Award “The Surface”
The Stuttgart Surface Technology Award “The Surface” was presented this year at the SurfaceTechnology Germany trade show. It honors the most innovative applications or technologies in all disciplines of surface technology and recognizes the ubiquitous but often overlooked cross-sectional technology that “often plays a key role in the degree of innovation and progress of numerous industries without this being known to the general public,” explains Martin Metzner. Mr. Metzner, who founded the award in 2012 and has been a member of the jury ever since, is head of the electroplating technology department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA. WAGNER was awarded the prize for the first time in 2013. The pioneering technology for process-safe “powder coating for standard MDF boards” was awarded “The Surface 2013” in gold.
