Lamborghini opens new AI equipped paint shop in Bologna
Automobili Lamborghini has opened its new 160,000 sqm paint shop for the Super SUV Urus in Sant’Agata Bolognese in Bologna.
The new facility, which currently employs over 100 people, features technologically advanced systems with low environmental impact and workers with highly specialized skills. Like the Urus Super SUV assembly line, the new paintshop is characterized by the use and further evolution of the Factory 4.0 model, which integrates new production technologies to support the workers in the assembly process.
Production in the new plant features an innovative modular process, which is very different from the standard linear process used traditionally in automotive painting systems. This innovation makes it possible to activate a certain process and path according to the colour required, ensuring the maximum process flexibility and production efficiency.
According to the Italian supercar maker, the new paint plant is the first in the world to be equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) able to recognise the priorities and program the processes. The intelligent system maintains a memory of each process carried out, calculates the time needed for each vehicle, and “learns” to program the subsequent steps based on past experience: for example, the quantity of a particular colour needed to paint a vehicle.
The painting process is carried out with a combination of manual and robotized phases. The robots perform the jobs that are the most repetitive and demanding in terms of ergonomics, while the human operators provide their crucial added value of manual skills required to complete the process. Another particular feature is the painting of exterior aesthetic elements such as the bumpers and mirrors, which is carried out in parallel with the bodywork to guarantee colour uniformity.
With the new paintshop, Lamborghini says it can offer its customers “infinite colour options”. The colours are divided into four types: ‘standard’, ‘special’, ‘matte’, and ‘Ad Personam’.
Through the Ad Personam program, customers can not only choose to personalize their car with the colours and graphics they prefer, but can also create their own unique special colour in a true work of art.
The new plant also significantly reduces the company’s footprint and is rated Class A with perfect insulation and is equipped with latest-generation LED lighting.
95 per cent of the colours used are water-based. Solvent emissions are very low thanks to an afterburner that can recover the heat and reuse it to heat the ovens of the painting line.
Moreover, the cutting-edge technologies of the air-misting systems enable high efficiency in terms of paint consumption. 80 per cent of the paint is actually applied on the bodywork, which is twice as high as on standard systems.
Finally, E-Cube technology makes it possible to capture the overspray during the painting process, which reduces water consumption for air filtration to zero.
Ranieri Niccoli, Chief Manufacturing Officer of Automobili Lamborghini comments: “The new painting facility completes our strategic plant expansion project for the Urus, which has just reached the important threshold of 5,000 vehicles produced in a year. This is an extraordinary success that justifies the substantial investment, which also reflects our desire to safeguard our know-how, employment growth in the territory, and our brand identity.”