The Agriculture, Construction and Earthmoving (ACE) coatings market, that includes equipment such as tractors, harvesters, excavators, mining and tunnel machinery & associated materials handling systems, use an estimated 750,000 tonnes (560 million litres) of coatings per annum.  These coatings operate in some of the most extreme environments, having to deal with abrasion, chemical attach and vast temperature differences but still need to perform throughout the assets operational lifespan.

Within the coatings industry there is a multitude of testing standards that organisations can choose to adopt for their specific coating. Within these standards there remains a degree of interpretation of results, that could potentially give a distorted view of the coatings performance.

Therefore, PRA World Limited are now in consultation with Pera International, Industry Associations & ACE equipment manufacturers to develop a PRA quality standard under an ISO 17065 scheme, to ensure the coatings comply with a representative test regime.  PRA’s quality mark will assure end users that the coating has passed a rigorous independent test programme and will allow manufacturers to clearly demonstrate the coating quality and as such prevent losing market share to inferior products.

Pera International will be funding the generic R&D in this project and will be working with PRA World Limited to disseminate the results widely.