QUALICOAT Autumn Members Meeting

Members met at the Arden Hotel, Solihull for their Autumn meeting with most members opting to meet in person and several joining remotely. The format of the ‘hybrid’ meeting is proving to be very successful and gives more members the opportunity to attend meetings of the Association and partake in the updating of the QUALICOAT specification.

With regard to executive posts, the Association is pleased to announce that Chris Mansfield of Tomburn has stood and been voted in to be Vice-Chair of the Association. Chris is in regular attendance at the Member’s meetings and as an active contributor brings a wealth of experience to the Chair. Chris will be taking up the position in 2023.

Despite the economic outlook, Members reported that business remains healthy despite rising costs of materials and energy. Growth of the Association also continues with three new licences being granted in October, one further new member expected to gain their licence before the end of the year and a further three applicators progressing through inspections. These initial inspections, undertaken by independent test house IFO, review both plant and processes to ensure that an applicator member can operate within the QUALICOAT Specification. Often a new applicator’s initial inspection will consist of a long list of non-conformities after their first inspection, this could include the need to upgrade equipment as well as introducing new processes. Working with the applicator, IFO will help guide new working practices to ensure the applicator can maintain the high specification laid down by QUALICOAT. Following further unannounced inspections, when the applicator can demonstrate full conformity, only then will a licence be awarded. It can take up to a year to become a licensed QUALICOAT Applicator, once approved  current licence holders can be found on the associations website.

All licensed applicator members are then inspected twice yearly by IFO, through an unannounced visit, to ensure they continue to conform to the up to date QUALICOAT Specification. A further requirement is that all applicator members must send their laboratory technicians on a technical training day once every two years. This year the training was held at pretreatment system Member, Chemetall in Milton Keynes on the 8th November.

One of the Associations missions is to continually improve the quality of the final coatings. In mid-October all the independent test houses who inspect members of the Association across the globe met in Spain to review feedback from inspections and put forward suggestions for further improvement in the specification. Of the points raised, two of the recommendations to be introduced in 2023 are as follows:

It has been the case that whilst all production lines are inspected on an unannounced visit, the member is then awarded an up to date single paper licence to show company compliance. In future each coating line will be issued a separate certificate and should the Applicator carry additional qualifications, such as ‘Seaside’ approval, these will also be issued separately.

For Applicators who wish to supply pre-anodised and powder coated finishes, QUALICOAT are now approving finishing between two plants in different locations as long as the process completes within a 72 hour period. Suitable pretreatment plants are expensive investments for an applicator, anodising plants are far more expensive, so very few powder coaters have the ability to utilise pre-anodising as a pretreatment prior to powder coating. Allowing pre-anodising to be conducted off site for an applicator will allow for a wider supply of pre-anodised powder coated profiles to specifiers.

Finally, it was reported that chrome-based pretreatments, which are still used by some members, will receive a full ban, when used as a powder coat pretreatment. The European ban will come into effect in September 2024 and it is very likely that the UK will follow this lead. Since chrome-based pretreatments were identified as a potential carcinogenic, the industry has devised various chrome-free systems which have been demonstrated to be as substantial as their chrome based counterparts. Most of these systems are QUALICOAT approved.

The worldwide QUALICOAT Specification is continually and incrementally revised in real time with regular update sheets, the specification is completely rewritten at year end to include all updates. The Specification, its appendices and any update sheets are always freely available for download at www.qualicoat.net. For details on the availability of various colours and finishes contact any QUALICOAT UK & Ireland member for more information. For updated information about the use and specification of QUALICOAT in the UK and Ireland, please visit the UK & Ireland Association new website at www.qualicoatuki.org.