The installation of flexible automated manufacturing is a turning point in the life of a company. It is important to have the employees as involved as possible in the installation. During this time some training will occur, either formal or informal. Management needs to be sensitive about giving directions concerning the new implementation. It is important that employees have a good understanding of the installation plan and how the final result will impact their daily work. Management can schedule for production workers to work along side installation personnel. This will help the employees to get a better understanding of the equipment of the flexible automated manufacturing and what can be expected of it. Also it will help the employees to cultivate ownership of the new manufacturing equipment and the benefits it will afford the company.
Before the actual shipping of the equipment that makes up the flexible automated manufacturing to the purchasing company, production managers from the purchasing company review its performance at its own manufacturing facility. Each piece of the system is tested individually. As near a production load as possible is put on each part of the flexible automated manufacturing. As the tests are performed the equipment performance is checked against the specifications that are expected. If any of the flexible automated manufacturing fails any of the tests the production, management makes note of the exact failure and disqualifies the equipment from shipping until it can pass the test. Once the tests are complete the production management of the purchasing company signs off as to having attended the tests and that the results of the tests were successful for equipment that will be shipped. The equipment is crated and shipped to the purchasing company location. There may have to be adjustments in the shipping schedule if any equipment does not pass the tests.
Most of the time the purchasing company and the system integrator will agree on the most practical order for the flexible automated manufacturing to be installed. The company will want this installation to disrupt its manufacturing operations as little as possible. Sometimes the install will be set up to occur in phases. This can be done so that the company does not have to wait until all the equipment is installed to start using it. The phases will be set so that some equipment can be installed and the company can bring some or all of those machines into production immediately. Generally there can be four phases that are required for a full system installation.
If there are CNC machines or other heavy devices that are to be installed, phase one of the process would be the time when floor excavation would be done. Any recovery systems, such as chip removers or coolant systems would be installed in this phase. Conduits for the utilities would be installed to support the new machinery. Foundation slabs would be reinforced, poured and started to cure.
The second phase of installation would include any floor lines for automation guided …
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Business Techniques for Automated Truck Washes – Industrial Mechanical Business Case Study
Due to hours of service rules for truck drivers, it makes sense for truckers to keep all stops to a minimum. So, if they need to use the restroom, buy fuel, eat, take a shower, get coffee, sleep, send emails, clean the windows, or wash the truck it makes sense to get it all done at one location with one Service Industry Types stop or the fewest possible. This has been a bundling bonanza for truck stops catering to the drivers, and most travel and truck centers have all that and more, including a general or convenience store. Okay so, let’s talk about this, and the challenges of a single location “truck wash” shall we?
Now then, one of the best places you can advertise and market would be at a truck and travel center, and you should choose the truck stops on any major routes leading by your business, within a 250 – 300 mile radius. Some truck stops do have truck washes on their property, or across the street. If this happens it might be difficult to advertise your truck wash at those locations.
However, often there are competing truck stops across the freeway from each other, one with a truck wash, and one without. The one without may wish to help you advertise to make up for the fact that they don’t have a wash on the property as their nearest competitor does. Likewise, overall, most truck stops don’t have a wash, and therefore you are not in competition with them, and therefore you should ask them if you can put up your flyers, business cards, or leave newsletters in their break room.
Indeed, I can remember one time I was at a truck stop in my mobile command center, and some cute gals came up to me and they asked me if I needed my truck cleaned, then they handed me a flyer, and on the back of the flyer was a map of exactly how to get to the truck cleaning Production Planning And Control facility. I smiled, because as a businessperson I knew exactly what they were doing, and I thought that the owner of the truck cleaning company was quite wise to send cute gals to the truck stop to hand out flyers, and invite truck owners and truck drivers to their location.
Unfortunately, in my case it was in the opposite direction in which I was traveling, but I must have kept that flyer for six months. When I came back through the area again, I actually did stop there and get my truck cleaned. It’s amazing what you can do to increase the volume and number of trucks coming through your automated truck wash if you will just use a little bit of grassroots marketing, and think about how you can sell to truck drivers while they are parked. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.…
Automated Storage
How to optimise your storage space Electrical Technology Degree and increase picking efficiency.
A big problem for a lot of companies is storage space. Large quantities of different sized goods stored on racks or static shelving takes up valuable Technology Industry News floor space, and increases operator picking times. In addition a disorganised stores area can lead to errors in picking and poor stock management.
One solution to all the problems above is for companies to invest in Automated storage equipment. Machines such as Storage Carousels and Vertical Lift modules (VLM’s), utilize the height of a building to store goods therefore saving on valuable floor space. As building are sold or rented according to the amount of floor space, this makes financial sense.
Storage Carousels
Vertical Carousels are a storage machine that rotates in a vertical plane. Vertical carousels resemble a ferris wheel in dynamics, the individual shelving modules are kept horizontal as they rotate, demonstrating the principle of “goods to the operator” in a perfect manner
Vertical carousels are suited for consolidating the storage of like sized small parts in a small footprint and lead to high density storage and high accuracy picking.
Vertical Lift Modules
A Storage Lift or VLM (Vertical Lift Module) is a computer or keypad controlled automated vertical lift providing a storage and retrieval system for goods and materials.
Stock within the VLM remains stationery on front and rear tray locations; on request a tray is brought from its location to an access point where an operator picks or replenishes stock and the tray is returned. Both easy to use and efficient, the VLM offers variable tray sizes and loads, which can be fully customised to utilize the available space within your workplace, across multiple floors if necessary.
An innovative solution with the capability for multiple access points combining high speed response and integrated warehouse management software, the VLM can dramatically increase the efficiency of the picking process. The key benefits are:
High Speed picking
High volume storage
Suits products of different sizes
The ability to improve the picking process further with multiple software applications
These machines have been in use for over 30 years from a variety of manufacturers including Kardex, Megamat, Hanel and Electroclass.…
Automated Assembly Is an Effective Automated Manufacturing Process
Automated assembly comes in various shapes and sizes depending on the types of products that require assembly. Assembly is a core work effort in the automated manufacturing process. Automated assembly contributes benefits to the automated manufacturing process and should be optimized to fit in with the other processes that have to be done in the manufacturing operation. Setting Up Industries There are four basic types of automated assembly that can be included in the automated manufacturing process. These are single work cell, flexible, synchronous, and non-synchronous automation. The optimum application of any one of these assembly types will have to be dictated by the configuration of manufacturing that will be used in concert with the assembly.
Single work cell automated assembly, as a part of the automated manufacturing process, performs the entire assembly of a product in a single work cell. This operation is best applied in high-volume manufacturing that requires for products with a small number of parts to be assembled to complete a given unit. This unit, once assembled, can be a finished product or it can be a sub-assembly that will be included in further assembly to build a finished product. In a lot of cases the single work cell automated assembly process can be just one part of several such work cells that build sub-assemblies for the production of other finished parts.
Synchronous automated assembly can be set up in the automated manufacturing process in either rotary, sometimes called circular, in-line, or carousel configurations. Any of these configurations requires that all the movement from work cell to work cell in the assembly process keep moving continuously. If any part of the assembly process breaks down or stops then all the processes in assembly will stop. There is no in-process inventory with this process. This type of set up is very effective for high-speed automated assembly because of its non-stop nature. The process runs as fast as the character of the machines and the parts will allow. Synchronous automation usually is used to assemble small, lightweight parts.
Non-synchronous automated assembly is a manufacturing operation that allows for the movement of products from one work cell to another at different rates. If there is a lot of time required for the completion of one step in the assembly process, and other steps in the process are performed at different rates, then this is the type of assembly automation that can be used very effectively. There may be some accumulation of in-process products at different points in the assembly process. The production rates for the non-synchronous assembly processes are inherently slower than the rates provided by synchronous processes. These slower processes have more flexibility in the types and sizes of products that can be assembled, so they are used in many more instances than synchronous assembly automation. The fact that in-process products can be accumulated between work cells allows these assembly processes to keep working in some areas if other parts of the process have stopped. The configuration of …