Picture this: a truckload of lumber pulls into Bonniebrook Pallet Company as a pair of driverless forklifts emerge from the plant.
They methodically unload the material and take it inside the building. IoT sensors on each bundle transmit data to the forklift mounted readers which are uploaded to the Bonniebrook ERP system, prompting the payment process and updating inventory information.
On the other side of the building, finished pallets emerge, with none of the lumber, pallet components nor finished units having been touched by a human during the entire manufacturing process. Then the autonomous lift trucks load them onto an outbound vehicle for delivery as shipment data is uploaded to the ERP to once again update inventory as well as to generate the invoice.
The above scenario hasn’t yet happened, as far as I know. It does, however, help us to stretch our thinking. The reality is that almost all pallet companies operate with varying degrees of automation, but the question is, how much makes sense, and are you confident that you have tapped all of the low-hanging fruit?
To be sure, new machinery can be extremely expensive, and as always, a sound business case must be made to validate the return on investment (ROI). Aside from equipment costs and having the credit available, there is also the issue of finding the room to introduce new systems within existing plants. And how will they integrate with your legacy equipment?
In spite of the challenges, the role of automation – the replacement of people power with machine power and other technologies – is a crucial consideration for contemporary pallet businesses.
The increased use of automation solutions can offer a host of benefits. In this article, we present a template for looking at your automation opportunities, including current situation assessment, identification of target manual activities, and then outlining some key benefits of automation to keep in mind. In the next installment, we will explore some misconceptions about automation and a range of automation solutions, but for now, let’s dive in!
Assessing Your Current Situation
Start your analysis by taking a fresh look at your current situation. Include a range of voices on your project team, including input from your administrative staff as well as production and maintenance. It is useful to also generate feedback from the bottom up (employees) as well as externally (customer feedback, competitor analysis, overall regional economy, government, etc.) Here are some questions to consider:
Internal Analysis
- What is your current production overall and by shift for popular sizes or products?
- If applicable, can you increase production by adding shifts?
- Are you hitting industry production benchmarks with your existing lines? If not, what’s holding you back?
- How frequent are changeovers?
- Do you have any production bottlenecks? What is preventing your existing process from producing higher volume or more consistent quality?
- How much material do you use? How much is wasted and why?
- How much labor do you use? Do you have enough people now?
- What will labor availability and cost look like for your area in 5-10 years?
- What about workers’ comp claims – are there some production areas that are more prone to injury?
- Are there some machines or lines that employees will avoid if at all possible?
- Do you have quality issues or problems meeting orders on time? What are the root causes?
- Do you have room to install more equipment in your existing plant or to expand on your current property?
- What other challenges do you face?
External Analysis
- Are customers happy with service and quality? How could automation help?
- Is there greater demand in the local market for popular sizes more than you can currently meet?
- Are their new major customers that will be entering your market area, for example , with plants under construction?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of competitors in your market area?
- What do you know about their present level of automation?
- Have you toured other plants with similar product mixes to assess their approach to automation?
- Have you toured facilities with high levels of automation?
- How would further investment in automation strengthen your competitive position?
- Are any grants or other incentives available for investment?
Problems That Can Be Addressed Through Automation
When making your assessment, consider some of the activities or issues that can be eliminated or streamlined – ones that offer the greatest value potential as modest improvements that can be easy wins – solutions that can be relatively smoothly integrated into your existing plant. Here are some activities to pinpoint:
- Manually feeding or operating saws
- Singulating components
- Inspecting and sorting components
- Stacking components
- Banding/strapping bundles of material
- Material movement
- Feeding hoppers and placing components
- Product consistency
- Machinery diagnostics
- Manual pallet handling
- Visual QC inspection
- Data capture
- Inventory control
- Order management
- Third-party verification/audit trail
Benefits of Automation and Computer Modeling
Industrial automation offers many benefits regarding labor, processing speed, quality control, waste reduction, ease of maintenance, data capture and more. While there are hard costs to purchasing a new line, installation and getting it up to speed, fully consider the range of benefits.
Labor Savings
Automation can help reduce or eliminate the need for manual labor in performing some tasks. It can also make jobs less stressful and physically demanding, enabling companies to broaden their hiring funnel to include people who would otherwise be excluded from consideration. It can also make jobs safer, and easier from a training perspective. Greg Wine of Pallet Machinery Group (PMG) recommends focusing investment to eliminate labor-intensive activities such as stacking lumber through investing in automated stackers, for example.
Processing Speed
Increased automation can help you improve throughput, for instance, by going from a single head nailer to a tandem line, or to a higher throughput saw. The addition of conveyors can help eliminate delays at the nailing machine while waiting for components. As Wine points out, every second counts and can really add up over the course of a shift. Each five-minute wait for wood at the nailing line can translate into 25 pallets that never got made. An inbound conveyor system just might eliminate that downtime.
Elimination of Bottlenecks
When part of your system is slower than the rest or is likely to get jammed, automation can help. Wine worked with one company that benefited immensely by investing in a higher throughput industrial saw, enjoying a 400% increase in lumber throughput. Likewise, singulators and dispensers can ensure an orderly presentation of material or pallets. Another bottleneck can take place when one part of the operation is cell-based rather than in-line. Wine also cites the example of a company that has a notcher sitting in the corner, but as volume for notched stringers increase, it makes more sense to reposition it in-line to avoid the activities of stacking stringers and taking them by forklift to the notcher for processing.
Flexibility
Increasingly, automation can offer greater flexibility regarding rapid changeovers, with customer order specifications uploaded directly to the nailing machine. Likewise, cutting lines that incorporate scanners are more flexible than humans regarding optimizing cut decisions. They can make more complex calculations that allow for greater component recovery and less waste.
Consistent Quality
Automated systems don’t get tired like people or have bad days. Automatic component placement is more accurate – every time. And when it comes to quality control, computer vision systems are now available to scan pallets to ensure they are within quality parameters.
Improved Data Capture and Informational Accuracy
Automated data capture eliminates the need to repeatedly transcribe information, eliminating both the arduous task and the risk of errors. Increasingly, plants are looking to ERP systems as well as computerized equipment that can upload pallet specifications, track production, perform diagnostics, and be accessed remotely by technicians or plant managers.
Ease of Maintenance
At first blush it might seem like more complicated systems might translate into more maintenance, but automation definitely has its advantages. Smart screens can communicate warning or service reminder messages to operators, and with cloud-based connections to smart phones and computers, alarms and alerts can be automatically sent out. Newer machines may offer information about service life, vibration, bearing temperatures and more. And with cloud-enabled monitoring, remote factory technicians can quickly troubleshoot. The end result should be more uptime and fewer breakdowns thanks to predictive maintenance.
That’s a wrap for part one in this look at automation. To summarize, perform both an internal and external analysis, and then consider the activities that are good candidates to be modified through technology, as well as benefits to anticipate. Next month we will consider common misgivings about automation and look at popular automation technologies being adopted by pallet companies.
