MANUFACTURING OF AUTONOMOUS CAR WASHING system for

Car wash industry

Location: The Netherlands
Industry sector: Car wash industry
This project was carried out by ACE Car Wash Systems in close collaboration with Formula Air

Background

As more and more people due to renewed environmental laws and regulations are not allowed to wash their cars in their own city streets or would like to have the luxury of a professional car wash service centre. The need for more car wash companies is growing. A big part of a car wash service centre is the opportunity to also vacuum clean your car after washing it. Formula Air, as a supplier of a big variety of high vacuum products like piping and connecting components as well as vacuum blowers and high-vacuum filtration systems, is often participating in renewing old and building new installations.

Challenge

A big part of building a car wash vacuum system is the steel construction needed to mount all the high vacuum components. These constructions are often expensive and take time and labour to install. Also, these constructions are not the most pleasing to look at, in an environment that is often carefully designed to give a customer a pleasant feeling while servicing their car. The challenge is to speed up the installation time and lower the costs of labour. Design a system that is mostly a combination of standard components configurable to the needs of the customer while not compromising on energy efficiency and the use of renewable materials.

Solution

In collaboration with our customer, Formula Air designed a totally new concept car wash vacuum column that is as functional as possible with a design that’s appealing to look at. This column is fully built in our factory in Beek en Donk and is configurable with all customer needs. This column is installed on a concrete base that is implemented in the floor during paving, with all the vacuum piping and connections underground. The customer has the choice to implement, tire inflating units, lighting, automatic start sensors, red and green lighting for availability and even vending machines to sell car products. All this is delivered on-site and can be installed in a very short amount of time. For energy efficiency, every column has its own pre-separator to reduce airspeed in central piping, in combination with a smart under-pressure controlled system we guarantee perfect suction power with the least amount of used power.

Designing this product took a significant amount of time, due to the request to make installation time as short as possible and have a modular design to implement all the different options. We had to build a couple of concept columns. With every new concept, all the pros and cons were evaluated and improvements were implemented. Also instructing personnel in the building of this new product had to be done internally. After all the efforts put in by all people involved, a brand new product is successfully created and installed by our partners.