Insourcing Surface Prep & Painting with Retractable Containment Can Save Millions for Military Ops

Situation

For U.S. military bases, flexible, reliable MRO is key to operational readiness. This is especially the case for military aircraft, vehicles, and large pieces of equipment that require extensive surface prep and coating to prevent corrosion.

Undetected corrosion damage can cause catastrophic system failure in aircraft and other mission-critical equipment. In addition to the obvious safety issues, corrosion damage can cost millions in repairs, rework, and repeated inspections. With ground transportation, corrosion can impact battery components, wheel wells, and many other parts and surfaces.

MRO is key to preventing corrosion, but ensuring safety during surface prep and painting is cumbersome and costly. These tasks release dangerous airborne hexavalent chromium and VOCs. Most often, military bases don’t have the facility space and infrastructure for safely containing these tasks. Plus, MRO can cause other workflows to come to a grinding halt when it’s time for surface prep and painting — limiting flexibility. The alternative is outsourcing MRO, which can cost millions.

Fortunately, there’s a solution: flexible, retractable MRO containment from Duroair™.

In this case study, we’ll look at how one military base partnered with Duroair for a portable, retractable containment solution that not only eliminated airborne hazards, but also potentially saved millions in outsourcing costs for MRO.

Solution

The military base came to Duroair because they needed more in-house flexibility for performing a wide variety of maintenance and repair operations, including surface prep and painting of aircraft, vehicles, and other mission-critical equipment. Outsourcing these tasks could be prohibitively expensive, in the millions of dollars. Fortunately, Duroair had a solution to bring MRO in-house, without sacrificing operational flexibility.

Retractable Containment + Industrial Filtration for MRO Flexibility

Duroair designed a flexible MRO containment solution: DuroRoom™, equipped with a DuroPure™ patented, six-stage industrial air filtration system. This all-in-one clean-air system captures 99.9+ particulates and cleans the air of VOCs, isocyanates, and hexavalent chromium, exceeding OSHA and EPA standards.

To increase operational flexibility, this containment system was designed to be retractable and portable. The military base was then able to subdivide its existing space into multi-chamber workspaces where multiple processes could be performed safely, side by side — maximizing productivity.

Now, when painting and/or surface prep work is completed, the enclosure can be retracted and stored at a fraction of its functional space. Plus, because the clean-air enclosure is non-vented, no ducting or make-up air is required for prep work, sanding, and coating. The solution also speeds dry times for painting by flooding dry, clean air inside each work area while keeping damaging contaminants outside.

Operational benefits include:

• The enclosure easily moves to facilitate material handling when grinding, painting, or sanding, bringing clean air to each large workpiece, instead of moving large components into a designated room or booth.
• Each system can be engineered to accommodate large components for jets, MRAPs, or submarines.
• Addresses cellular workflow challenges while protecting personnel.

Results

Maximize Budgets by Insourcing MRO Tasks

With the flexible, retractable solution in place, the military base was able to bring its prep work and painting in-house, saving “hundreds of thousands of dollars” and ensuring service member skillsets remain current.

This retractable clean-air solution is more affordable than designated paint rooms and workspaces, and it moves with military maintenance workflows. It’s a cost-effective way to address material handling challenges associated with surface prep and painting for large aircraft components and equipment.

Now, when the crew at the military base is not doing prep work, sanding, or painting, they retract the enclosure and have the space available for other maintenance workflows and operations. This flexibility gives the base more control over their work.

Most importantly, the military is able to protect its most valuable assets – its service members – from the dangers of working with hexavalent chromium and VOCs while keeping mission-critical equipment ready for deployment.

Let Duroair Design a Containment Solution to Increase Your Operational Readiness

How do you balance a large mix of assembly workflows, such as sanding, painting, and other surface prep, without sacrificing operational readiness? Containment flexibility is the answer.

Duroair’s retractable enclosures isolate, contain, and protect processes as engineered filtration mitigates harmful contaminants for a compliant, tested, and verified clean air solution.

Contact our industrial clean air experts today for a free consultation on how we can create the most flexible solution possible to increase your operational flexibility and improve your bottom line while staying within your floor plan and space limitations.