Though it’s aimed more at calculating paint usage to keep Canadian environmental regulators happy, a tiny device featured Thursday in Collision Repair Magazine seems as though it could give U.S. shops another way to track waste and itemize paint for reimbursement.

Here’s an excerpt from the RDN content-sharing partner. Read the full article here.

A sensor on the (Enviro Database Solutions) gun registers the amount of paint being used. The stats are uploaded to a cloud-based site. No more piles of paper scraps, or data-entry labour time. When the MOE does an inspection and asks for your records, you simply go to the website, log in and hit print. All of the data from when the painter starts the job is stored. No more checking scribbled notes or trying to reconstruct the data from paint supplier invoices.

One of the benefits is that this paint usage monitoring system updates in real-time. The feed can be sent to a smartphone, so the owner or manager can see how much material painters are using from anywhere in the world. “You can be sitting on a beach in Florida and watching how much paint your guy is using in the booth,” says (developer Steve Ark).

There’s also the question of the painter’s time, productivity and morale. They didn’t get into the business to do paperwork. They want to paint. …

The device can be installed on any paint booth or prep station and works with any spray gun. The data stream includes the time the painter pulled the gun trigger and for how long. The software keeps a log and totals this all up automatically, giving you a number in terms of total litres per hour used. “Owners will say to me, well, ‘My paint mixing scale does this.’ Oh really? Tell me how much actually went up the stack. This device tells you how much did,” says Ark.

Read more at Collision Repair Magazine.

More information:

“New paint monitor frees painters from paperwork”

Collision Repair Magazine, Jan. 28, 2016

Images:

A paint usage monitoring product from Enviro Database Solutions. (Provided by Enviro Database Solutions)

A screenshot demonstrates the paint usage monitoring product from Enviro Database Solutions. (Provided by Enviro Database Solutions)

A paint usage monitoring product from Enviro Database Solutions. (Provided by Enviro Database Solutions)