News Release

Jul. 16, 2004
The new product operates eco-friendly, achieves higher coating quality, and reduces auto manufacturer's operating costs.

We are pleased to announce that Daifuku Co., Ltd. (headed by President Katsumi Takeuchi and headquartered in Osaka) and Taikisha Ltd. (headed by President Hiroshi Yamamoto and headquartered in Tokyo) have jointly developed a new paint system, the E-DIP, for automobile production plants, and released the product in August 2004. The E-DIP fuses Daifuku's Conveyor Technology with Taikisha's Paint Finishing Technology, completing an enhanced system that is oriented towards the key issues, "environment," "quality," and "productivity," which have become the focus of the automotive industry worldwide. The E-DIP represents a system capable of meeting the need for a "single-source placement of orders for paint and conveyor systems," which is increasingly demanded in the overseas market to launch production lines smoothly.

The E-DIP uses the newly developed dipping carrier to replace the conventional overhead chain conveyors for Pretreatment and Electro-deposition Coatings, which are the first processes of the many painting applications employed at automobile plants. The E-DIP greatly reduces solution and water consumption, thus making the factory more eco-friendly, improving coating quality, reducing operating costs, and shortening production lead-times.

E-DIP System:

"E" for Ecology and Evolution.
"DIP" based on Dipping processes on Pretreatment
and Electro-Deposition Coating line.

Automakers emphasize not only the need to increase quality and production efficiency but also to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and volatile organic compounds (VOC), and other ecologically unfriendly actions. The paint line has conventionally had a particularly long production lead-time where drying and coating processes are repeated. Moreover, it consumes large quantities of coating materials, water, electricity, combustible gas (oil), and other fuels, so there has been a growing need to streamline the processes and make them more efficient.

Presently, in the area of Pretreatment and Electro-deposition Coating, Daifuku's Conveyor Systems and Taikisha's Paint Finishing Systems enjoy the largest shares in the Japanese market and have also been delivered in mass to the overseas sites of automakers. The pretreatment process consists of rinse and dip stages to remove the initial rustproof oil, lubrication oil, iron dust, weld smoke, and other impurities adhered to the stamped, pressed, and welded vehicle bodies. It also treats the bare steel surfaces to increase their adhesion to paint coatings. And a lead-free rustproof coating is mainly applied in the electro-deposition process.

In conventional practice, an overhead chain conveyor was employed to suspend the vehicle body and lower it into and take it out of the tanks filled with the rinsing fluids and electro-deposition paint respectively. The E-DIP replaces the overhead conveyor with a dipping carrier, handling the vehicle body and controlling its angle when lowered into or taken out of the tank along with its moving in the tank. The E-DIP can add a steeper angle to the vehicle body upon entrance and exit to the tanks to greatly shorten the conveyor distance along with the process time, as compared with the conventional chain conveyor. It agitates the vehicle body in the tank to remove dirt and even air bubbles in crevices, thus increases the coating quality. The E-DIP also minimizes the entire tank size since the adit of vehicle body angle is increased. Thus, it facilitates solution drainage while reducing the carry-over of the solution to the next stage. This in turn reduces water consumption during rinsing and the solution amount entering the drainage network, making the system more eco-friendly. The E-DIP also reduces operating costs for the solution, water supply, drainage, and other processes as well. As the production line is shortened, lead-time is reduced.

Our two companies aim to secure system orders totaling approximately 5.0 billion yen (US$ 47 million) or more in the next three years starting fiscal 2004. These will include orders for new construction, scrap-and-build projects, and other projects in automobile plants in Japan as well as China, South Korea, other Asian countries, North America, Europe, and other areas.

E-DIP Features & Benefits:

1.Space reduction

The E-DIP reduces the length of Pretreatment and Electro-deposition Coating (by approx. 25%) and shortens the conveyor line (by approx. 50%), thus reduces and simplifies the factory layout and increases space efficiency (in the case of a factory with an annual throughput of about 200,000 vehicles).

2.Operation cost

The E-DIP allows flexible adjustment of the vehicle body angle when lowered into and taken out of the tank, thus allowing savings in operating costs by reducing the solution consumption in the pretreatment (by approx. 25%), drainage (by approx. 40%), and power consumption in the electro-deposition process (by approx. 25%).

3.Flexibility

The E-DIP allows different configurations such as the conveyor speed job pitch, process selection, and other parameters to be adjusted, thus capable of dealing multi-model mixed production.

4.Coating Quality

The E-DIP allows the vehicle to remove dirt and air bubbles from tight and enclosed spaces, thus greatly increasing coating quality.

5.Investment cost reduction

The E-DIP reduces the number of vehicle carriers in the system, which shortens the production line and reduces the length of the process equipment, thus makes it possible to reduce the total cost of the production line system.

[Daifuku Co., Ltd.]

Business description:

Comprehensive material handling system manufacturer

Headquarters:

3-2-11 Mitejima, Nishiyodogawa-ku, Osaka 555-0012 JAPAN

Established:

May 20, 1937

Paid-in capital:

JPY8,023 million (as of March, 2004)

Employees (Consolidated):

Approx. 3,500 (as of March, 2004)

Net sales (Consolidated):

JPY138,660 million (as of March, 2004)

Web Site:

www.daifuku.com

[Taikisha Ltd.]

Business description:

Major engineering and manufacturing company of paint
finishing, air conditioning and cleanroom systems

Head Office:

Shinjuku-Sumitomo Building, 2-6-1 Nishi-Shinjuku
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 163-0212 JAPAN

Established:

April 10, 1913

Paid-in capital:

JPY6,455 million

Employees (Consolidated):

Approx. 2,946 (as of March, 2004)

Revenues (Consolidated):

JPY191,988 million (as of March, 2004)

Web Site:

www.tks-group.com

E-DIP capable of controlling the body angle when being lowered into and taken out of the tank

When the body is lowered into the tank

When the body is taken out of the tank