If you do any amount of powder coating production, you’ll reach a point where continuing to use small or mid-sized ovens no longer makes sense. There are several factors that should be taken into consideration when deciding on which size of powder coating oven is best for your production volume. An industrial production volume is not something that happens overnight. It can take time to get there, but once your company has grown to the point where producing in smaller quantities no longer makes sense, it’s time to start exploring potential options for larger-scale production and investing in equipment that will make scaling up your production much easier. If you find yourself at this crossroads, read on for advice on what size of powder coating oven you should invest in for your production volume.
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What to consider when choosing a powder coating oven size
There are several factors to consider when choosing the size of powder coating oven that will suit the needs of your production volume. First, take into consideration the amount of production you’ll be doing. If you only produce a handful of items for yourself or as gifts for family members, then a full-sized powder coating oven might be overkill. However, if you’re producing for a living or as part of your business, you’ll want to make sure that you have the right size oven to fit your needs. You’ll also want to consider what types of parts you’ll be powder coating. Do you only need to powder coat small items like jewelry or a few small metal sculptures, or do you need to powder coat a large car or truck? How many of each will you be producing? This can help you get a better idea of the size of powder coating oven that you’ll need. Another thing to think about is how often you’ll be switching out parts in your production. If you’re doing a moderate amount of production, you won’t be switching out parts every few minutes. However, if you’re doing production processing on a large scale, you’ll typically be swapping out parts much more frequently, which could make a larger oven a better investment.
Determining your company’s production volume: Why bigger is better
When you’re thinking about the size of powder coating oven that will suit your production volume best, you want to make sure that you’re investing in an oven that will accommodate the amount of production you’ll be doing. If you’re only producing a few items here and there, you can probably get by with fewer than 10 square feet of production space. However, if you’re producing on a larger scale, you’ll want to make sure that your oven has enough space for you to fit all of the parts you’ll be producing. The larger your oven, the more parts you’ll be able to fit inside at once. This means that you won’t have to constantly be taking things out of the oven to make room for new parts or for items that have finished production. The more parts you can fit inside your oven at a time, the less time you’ll spend shuttling parts and pieces back and forth between your production area and the oven. This will help you maximize your efficiency and throughput, as well as improve your overall production process. A larger production volume also means a larger oven, which means that you won’t need to shut down operations as often to clean your oven.
Larger ovens are easier to operate and maintain
If you’ve ever worked in a production facility that has smaller equipment, you know just how difficult it can be to operate and maintain equipment that’s too small for the job. When you’re only using a small amount of space, it leaves very little wiggle room for error. A smaller oven will be difficult to properly calibrate and will be hard to keep at the correct temperature. It’s possible that even the slightest error could cause your entire batch to fail, which is something that you don’t want to risk when you’re producing on a larger scale. A 12x12x20 powder coating oven which is a large oven, on the other hand, will be much easier to calibrate and keep at the correct temperature. It will also be easier to clean. You’ll have more room to work, making it less likely that you’ll get hurt while cleaning your oven.
Larger ovens require less of a temperature drop per rack
When you’re producing in a smaller powder coating oven, you’ll likely need to drop the temperature of your production per each additional item that you put in the oven. If you’re producing in an oven that’s too small, you’ll be dropping the temperature significantly per each additional item that you put in the oven. This means that you’ll need to be very careful in how you manage the production cycle. If you don’t carefully account for the temperature drop, you run the risk of burning your parts. This can be especially challenging when you’re producing multiple items of the same part. Once you determine the temperature drop for your first part, you’ll need to drop the temperature again for each additional part of the same type.