Customer Story: Axalta Coatings Systems

Axalta Coatings Systems is a leading global coatings provider, with 48 manufacturing centers and more than 30 laboratories, including the world’s largest coatings R&D center in the US.

Axalta Germany has embraced digital workflows to streamline its operations and is using terrestrial laser scanners to capture as-builts when carrying out various types of projects, such as constructing new buildings and pipe bridges or replacing or maintaining equipment.

Axalta first trialled Cintoo Cloud in April 2020 to assess how the platform would integrate with its existing systems and enhance project workflows. Significant time and cost savings were quickly realized and the team began their first major project with a 1,000 scan subscription, increasing this to 2,000 scans within a matter of months.

Axalta project teams use Leica BLK 360 scanners while their contracting surveyors and other scanning companies they employ use Leica RTC 360 and Faro equipment. These different terrestrial laser scanners are all supported by Cintoo Cloud.

By uploading their RCP files, planners, maintenance teams and project managers can all easily view the scan data as well as take measurements of an existing site in Cintoo Cloud, avoiding the need to go out and visit sites regularly. They combine this laser scan data with their planning data, uploaded from Autodesk BIM 360, to track the current situation against the BIM or CAD model to maintain quality assurance. Scan-scan comparison is also conducted during the building phase to continuously track progress.

Within the Axalta team, there are currently around 50 Cintoo Cloud users across seven projects. Primary users are accessing their projects on the platform twice a day, while team members less involved in day-to-day activity, such as planners, contractors or maintenance staff, as well as those less familiar with the sites, are accessing the data around once or twice a week.

Furthermore, with no limit as to how many users can be invited, if a planner or contractor is drafted in to support a projectand provide a quote, they can be granted the necessary permission for a limited time while they gather the required data.

Cintoo Cloud doesn’t limit Axalta to certain file formats from proprietary scan platforms. Rather, contractors can load scans in their preferred formats (e57, FLS, RCP) as well as different models (from BIM 360) and be sure the scans and models will all function in the platform.

Before each project begins on a specific area of the plant, the site is scanned. This allows for negative clash checks to be performed with the data from the completed project to ensure the scans and the model are aligned.