CIN of Portugal: computerisation and automation in paint manufacture

CIN‐Corporação Industrial Do Norte SA of Oporto, with a turnover last year of around £17m, is the largest independent paint company in Portugal and the largest industrial paint supplier. With 1992 and the common European home market now looming large on the horizon, the editor recently visited CIN at their 50,000m2 site near to Porto (in Portugal they drop the ‘O’) Airport, to prepare the following report (and incidentally, to partake of some excellent port wine). A visitor is immediately surprised at the extensive laboratory facilities, the degree of automation in production, and computer control facilities that exceed all those we have seen in UK paint factories, with one exception.