Quality issues in enameling of ceramic industry products

This paper details a set of quality issues associated with the enamelling of ceramic industry products. Enamelling is a common manufacturing process in the sanitary ware industry, where enamel is applied on the ceramic substrate to provide a coating of protection against corrosion and bacterial infection. This mass manufacturing process combines manual and robotic manipulation and presents unique quality issues. The issues identified in this paper are representative of a greater family of coating processes that deal with complex surfaces and pose special challenges for production and quality engineering departments.