Since 1954, our outdoor furniture has been inspired, designed and manufactured in the Drôme region with the aim of providing sustainable products.
The Paint Workshop in our Drôme factory
Made in France
Our French know-how
Come and discover our production line behind the scenes, while getting to know our know-how and expertise. In the LAFUMA MOBILIER family, we present you the Paint Workshop! This is a way to bring you to the heart of our Drôme region production facility, and especially to get to knowthe men and women who make up LAFUMA MOBILIER.
At the heart of tube painting
Painting is a key step in the manufacturing process of our products for combining style and quality. It's here that the colours come to life and ensure the good resistance to UV and corrosion of our products. We use paints made in France and the process is optimised for continuous recycling! Indeed, 81% of our paint comes from Montbrison in Loire and 19% from Thouars in Deux-Sèvres.
Our paints are 100% polyester powder. In order to ensure resistance to scratches and rust, it is important to prepare and clean the steel tubes well before painting and curing. This is why our metal structures spend 75 minutes going through the process. The total circuit is 380 metres long. The shop operates in pull-flow, i.e. the line end pulls production. Special carriers are developed for each product. A rail distributes the painted structures directly to the assembly workshop. On average, ten items are removed per minute.
The paint shop has different areas. The first is the hanging area, which is placed at shoulder height. Then the metal structures go into a Surface Treatment Tunnel where the tubes are cleaned with non-toxic products. The tunnel constitutes the second area, which is 40 metres long. "Washing" is done in baths without chrome or phosphate and water use is minimised. The third is the drying area, where the products go into an oven at 150°C for 10 minutes. The fourth zone is the painting in the booth, where the paint is sprayed onto the structure.
The fifth is the curing step at a temperature of 235°C which lasts twelve minutes. To finish, the sixth and last step is the removal of the tubes.
In winter our employees are lucky to work in the warmest workshop in our plant.
A very long rail has been installed to enable cold removal once the product arrived at assembly area, and as close as possible to the two main assembly stations (Relax & Transat).
The paint is continuously reused in a closed circuit. The waste paint particles are sent directly to our supplier Axalta located in the Loire, for recycling and reuse in new productions. We have also changed our cleaning process, which has resulted in a 20% reduction in the volume of reprocessed water, i.e. 15,000 litres saved!
Did you enjoy your visit to the paint workshop? We'll take you on a tour of the sewing workshop. If you would like to find out more about this workshop, please carry on to the next article.
