New standards (CP 1/2009)

Energy prices and environmental awareness are making small cars attractive. General Motors and BASF are responding jointly.

Value-for-money and gas-saving cars are now in great demand on the American markets, and companies are also adapting to meet this demand. Two current examples from Mexico and the USA show how the automobile industry is responding to this trend hand-in-hand with its suppliers. The demand for affordable cars is growing particularly fast in South America.

Chevrolet Aveo: It exemplifies the trend toward the small car - GM can produce up to 300 a day in Mexico. (Picture: GM Corp.)

That is why the long-established brand General Motors (GM) has been producing the new Chevrolet Aveo in Mexico since June 2008. The cars are primarily intended for Mexico, Canada, and the South American export markets.A new plant has been opened especially for that purpose in San Luis Potosí, approx. 400 kilometers northwest of Mexico City.

BASF Coatings supported GM in the development and construction phase of the new plant; the investment in the new factory amounted to a billion US dollars for the automobile producer. 30 vehicles can be produced in one hour there. The plant is thus working at full capacity only shortly after it was opened. Like Ramos Arzipe and Silao, San Luis Potosí is a very important GM factory in Mexico, with considerable development potential.

BASF Coatings is involved at three of the four GM plants in Mexico, making it one of GM’s preferred suppliers in Mexico. The coatings producer provides the primer, the colored basecoat, and the protective clearcoat for production of the Aveo in San Luis Potosí. In addition, eleven Coatings employees have been working on site in the production plant since the factory opened.

Chevrolet Traverse: GM also employs the expertise of BASF Coatings forthe coating of its compact SUV. (Picture: GM Corp.)

Hand-in-hand with their GM colleagues, they ensure that the process specifications are adhered to.

Rethinking in the USA

While large automobiles were part of the “American Way of Life” up until a few years ago, now even here the difficult economic environment is bringing smaller and more economical models to the forefront. The automobile manufacturers are responding with new models, including GM.

The new Chevrolet Traverse has been in production since September. It is a compact SUV with low fuel consumption. The production plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, was re-equipped for the start of production. As the coatings supplier, BASF also had to adapt to the new processes at an early stage.

The initial preparations were already made in the spring of 2007. BASF Coatings tested the new processes for the Traverse in the company‘s own applications center (Automotive Research Center) in Southfield.

Here the customer’s production environment can be replicated, enabling trials to be carried out under real conditions. The aim was to be able to continue to provide coatings of a consistently high and reliable quality, even under changing production conditions. In the next stage, tests were carried out not only according to the supplier‘s criteria, but also according to the specifications of the automotive group.

Then, groups from GM and from BASF tested the same processes as well. During this period, teams from both companies spray-painted over 3,000 test panels.

At various points in the year, 24 employees from BASF Coatings were trained for touch-up work on the coating line. “In these training sessions the employees learned how to prepare the surfaces, or even how to improve the glossy finish after repair.

These factors support the employees in the daily process monitoring of the coating line,” says Anthony Wooten of BASF‘s Technical Service in Southfield, who carried out the training courses. In the summer before the official start of series production in Spring Hill, over 1,200 car bodies were painted in colors such as Olympic White, Switchblade Silver, and Cyber Gray.

Thanks to the joint preparations, series production of the Traverse started on schedule in the first week of September.

Early involvement: The support BASF Coatings provided to GM extended all the way back to production process design – both in North America and for the new Chevrolet Aveo plant in Mexico (right). (Pictures: GM Corp.)

www.basfccmexico.com
www.basf.com/usa
www.gm.com