International. The manufacturer Dürr announced that in December 2015 it sold its 10,000th painting robot. The company announced that the EcoRP E033 anniversary specimen will be installed in 2016 along with 15 additional robots at Opel's Spanish factory in Zaragoza.
Dürr installed the first paint robot at Nissan in Barcelona in 1998. Compared to the painting machinery available in those days, the new technology represents a quantum leap – both in terms of paint quality, as well as the speed, paint consumption and reliability of the process.
The demand for the Dürr robot grew in response to the constant technological development of vehicle paint automation. Dürr sold half of its last 10,000 units since 2011; In addition to the outer shell, Dürr robots are now increasingly being used to paint the interior of cars.
Dürr reported that it also uses robots to perform other more efficient stages of production of the automotive industry, such as sealing welding joints, gluing vehicle sheets and glass or cleaning components. The company has more recently embarked on new approaches with a human-robot collaboration system that accelerates the installation of fuel tanks during final vehicle assembly.
