Rover avoids robots in new paint shop

Describes Rover’s new paint shop at Longbridge, which is aimed to meet existing and future regulations on atmospheric emissions expected during the next few years under the Environmental Protection Act. Applications of paint include dipping, automatic electrostatic spray and manual spray but no spray‐painting robots are used in the new plant. It was felt that their use would have added to the technical challenges already being faced with the introduction of water‐borne paints and they were seen as being costly and imposing an additional burden on maintenance costs. Painting robots may be used in the future when the present technological advances have been fully absorbed. Describes the development and operation of the paint shop.