“Doing the impossible.” That’s what Doug Wenninger and his team at Alliance Automation are driven to do. Having worked with some pretty demanding customers, such as Whirlpool Corporation, General Electric, Ford Motor Co. and CHEP, Alliance knows how to develop novel solutions to everyday production challenges.
Over the last several years, the Alliance team has put its engineering focus on some of the biggest challenges in pallet recycling facilities. This includes dismantling pallets using robotics, automatically optimizing and sorting trimmed boards, and now pallet inspection and accurate counting.
Automation is the answer to the biggest production problems in the industry, and pallet companies can’t afford to stay on the sidelines while others streamline their processes and optimize their use of labor and materials. That’s the message that Doug Wenninger, president and CEO of Alliance Automation in Van Wert, Ohio, wants to get across to the wider pallet industry. Alliance Automation has pioneered the development of the Robotic Pallet Dismantler™, the Urban Sawmill ™, and the iPallet™ inspection system. Alliance also offers a full line of pallet repair and sortation equipment involving robotics as well as advanced automation. Wenninger stated, “Everybody knows that the big guys can justify these advanced recycling systems, but there are a lot of small players out there that don’t think they can afford it, when in actuality they can.”
Even some of the big players were not initially sold on some of these advanced solutions for recycling challenges. Wenninger affirmed, “The pallet industry’s attitude toward out-of-the-box solutions to automation challenges is changing. When we first introduced the Robotic Pallet Dismantler, people were very hesitant. I would say they were kind of incredulous. I actually had people look at me and say, ‘That’s ridiculous. That’s never going to work.’ Others said, ‘There’s no way you’re ever going to get somebody to pay the price tag that you’re asking.’”
But some of those companies have changed their tune and even become happy Alliance Automation customers. Why? Wenninger explained, “There are multiple factors driving automation, from the extremely tight labor market to skyrocketing material prices. Those two realities have opened the industry’s mind.”
What Customers Say about Alliance Automation Solutions
The “people challenge” is what led Fred Vrugteveen of Niagara Pallet to turn to the Robotic Pallet Dismantler. Vrugteveen explained, “We were struggling to hire people. Our business grew significantly. The most difficult position we had to fill was teardown. And we couldn’t staff that position beyond our needs for repair lumber. This led us to grind up a lot of material that we could otherwise turn into valuable lumber.”
One operator with the robot can do what it used to take four people to do with regular bandsaw dismantlers. Vrugteveen said, “The installation process was pretty seamless. Orientation was seamless. They came back and did some more training in a few areas. We have added some additional functionality that wasn’t standard out of the box.”
The Robotic Pallet Dismantler was installed about a year ago. Alliance Automation upgraded the system programming to take a pallet, cut the bottom boards off and then drop it off the dismantler. Or Niagara Pallet can cut the center stringers and the bottom boards out. Vrugteveen commented that this allows them to turn a four or five stringer pallet into a three stringer pallet, providing more versatility and functionality to how they use odd-sized cores.
A major benefit that the Robotic Pallet Dismantler provides is precise data. Vrugteveen proclaimed, “The equipment works very well, and the information it feeds back to you every shift is a breath of fresh air in the industry. We have a score card that we can read. It identifies who our strong operators are and how much downtime there is. It gives us a lot of metrics that we can hone in onto explain what is happening.”
Reports cover everything from blade life to production, the reasons the saw stops and other key metrics. When it comes to safety, the robot takes on a somewhat dangerous job and makes it much easier on the worker. Vrugteveen admitted, “The Robotic Dismantler is definitely safer than the standard way that most recyclers take apart pallets. It’s more efficient and offers improved ergonomics for the operator. It requires less physical labor to operate, so someone’s dexterity and strength are less of an issue now to fill that position.”
With regard to production, the robot can handle anywhere from 80 to 100 pallets per hour. Vrugteveen stated, “This is a game changer in terms of taking apart pallets. We can do upwards of 80 pallets per hour.” Staff has been moved to other positions, especially in the pallet manufacturing operation to produce combo and remans.
The next step for Niagara Pallet is to install the Urban Sawmill optimized trim saw system from Alliance Automation. Currently, Niagara Pallet has an Urban Sawmill on order. It will allow Niagara Pallet to turn odd-sized pallets into usable wood and send much less material to the chipper. Vrugteveen said, “We are going to be less focused on combo and more focused on remanufactured pallets. With the Urban Sawmill, we can improve the speed of dismantling while reducing the labor costs.”
Both systems will integrate together to provide a fuller picture of the production process. Vrugteveen added, “I am excited to see the Urban Sawmill behind this because we are going to start tracking the lumber produced as well. The more info we get, the better we are as operators.”
The Urban Sawmill will help Niagara Pallet boost production and optimize yield recovery. In addition, it will take manual processes, such as trimming and sorting, and automate those functions. Niagara Pallet runs two shifts and expects the Urban Sawmill to produce about 100,000 board feet per week of reclaimed boards.
Another success story for Alliance Automation started with a bottleneck. Cain Sanchez, president of Dependable Pallet Logistics Inc., had installed an Urban Sawmill in December last year to deal with a production bottleneck at the trim saw. Sanchez recounted, “We had too many dismantlers going into one trim saw. That was causing a bottleneck. Everything was getting jammed up.”
Dependable Pallet Logistics recently sold to 48forty Solutions, and the company’s automation was one thing that attracted the interest of the larger recycler. Over the last few years, Dependable has been on a push to produce combo pallets. And the Urban Sawmill fits this objective well given its efficiency in scanning, trimming, optimizing and sorting reclaimed boards. As a second-generation business, Sanchez put his own spin on the traditional methods used by his mom Eva Sanchez. He recalled, “When I took over, we started looking at all the custom sizes. For customers, they either had to buy a brand new pallet or there were no other solutions for them. I saw a niche for combo odd-sized pallets. We are able to save customers 10-20% or more compared to a new pallet.”
Sanchez stated, “As lumber prices continue to fluctuate, the more valuable odd-sized get. Most don’t jump into odd-sized because of the fear of investment.”
The Urban Sawmill enables Dependable Pallet to optimize cuts for whatever is selling and needed in inventory. Sanchez said, “Ever since we hooked up with Alliance, this partnership has helped our output. It gave our team a little more solid direction. We have this system where we can all work together and increase output. It has stopped a lot of our injuries.”
Installing the Urban Sawmill boosted production so much that Dependable Pallet needed to do something to improve the pace of dismantling. It was running eight bandsaw dismantlers. But they couldn’t keep up with the Urban Sawmill. Sanchez could have added some more traditional dismantlers, but he was running out of space and wanted to do something to reduce labor requirements related to that function. Sanchez explained, “We wanted to figure out a way to reduce the strain on workers and be able to pay workers more for higher function activity. The Robotic Pallet Dismantler produces 2-3 times what one manual dismantler station can do.”
Sanchez has used two robots to replace five manual dismantlers. He still runs two manual stations to process pallets that don’t efficiently run through the robot. He explained, “There are really some pallets that the robot can’t process efficiently, such as pallets with lots of loose hanging boards. These are better to process through a manual dismantler.”
Maintenance has been easy, according to Sanchez. The biggest wear item seems to be sensors from time to time. These systems have overall improved every aspect of operations, from production to versatility to labor reduction.
Data Drives Innovation
Data is a major focus of Alliance in not only its machinery but also its Return on Investment (ROI) modeling. Wenninger stated, “In most cases, companies running a combination of the Robotic Dismantler and the Urban Sawmill, I’ve never seen one calculated out further than a two year ROI. I’ve now had three different companies come back to me and tell me your payback calculator is wrong. And I braced myself for the discussion only to hear them say, ‘We actually paid it off way faster than what you said.’”
A robust reporting system comes with every line sold by Alliance. Production reports are emailed out at the end of the day. The company is working on a portal where customers can access their private information online and will be able to go in and run queries on their past production records.
A big advantage of the Urban Sawmill is the board utilization and data related to improving yield. Browning Sheehan, COO of Alliance Automation, said, “There is a value of the yield gained by running our Urban Sawmills that some of the folks that are coming back to us are talking about 10-30% yield gains in their boards. When you’ve got guys running chop saws that don’t care how much they cut off and throw away compared to a machine that’s optimizing your material, it changes the whole way that you look at these systems.”
Wenninger explained, “Recently we quoted $3 million worth of equipment, and it calculated out to be a five month payback, based on labor savings, throughput numbers, and board foot yield.” While this may be a special case, it illustrates how people can add up in a hurry. This facility had eight two-man dismantlers but could only staff five due to labor shortages. As a result, a mountain of pallets was building up on the yard. The company was running out of storage. On the back of every dismantler was a trim saw system requiring two operators. The department also had two people on chop saws. That’s 22 people. This recycler ran two shifts, which equates to 44 people in the dismantling area. In the model, Alliance was able to take 44 people down to only 16. That’s a huge labor savings.
Growing and Developing a Strong Staff
Pallets were not originally on the agenda for Alliance Automation. Wenninger explained, “We have grown up with CHEP as they’ve really pushed forward automating their processes. We’ve been right in the middle of it. We kind of landed in the pallet industry by accident and then discovered the white-wood market and all its needs.”
Alliance Automation first entered the pallet space in 2008, working with CHEP’s automation projects. The company sold its first Robotic Pallet Dismantler in 2016. Alliance spent most of 2017 debugging and improving its operation. Two systems were sold in 2018, none in 2019 and then orders just took off. Today, the company has sold 59 robots in North America and hopes to have its first European installation sold soon. To date, the company has sold 30 Urban Sawmills. The company had 23 employees in 2010 and now employs over 200 staff members. All of these orders mean the company is growing and needs more manufacturing capacity.
Alliance Automation moved into its new manufacturing facility earlier this year. This facility has a 112,000 square foot manufacturing floor and 20,000 square feet of space dedicated to engineering staff. Growth has come so quickly that the company plans to add an additional 30,000 square feet dedicated to fabrication and machining.
Beyond facilities, the company has also focused on developing its team. Wenninger said, “Our service and support capabilities, I think, are unsurpassed. We have over a hundred engineers and technicians, including Spanish, English, bilingual service technicians. And I think that’s something that we can offer other automation companies can’t.”
Alliance has developed a program to bring in up to 35 workers from Mexico, most of whom are degreed engineers, to help with its technical expertise. Currently, the staff has people from five nationalities, including Mexico, India, South America and North Africa. Sheehan commented, “We have multiple languages that are spoken within the company, and that gives us the ability to communicate with foreign customers and develop training materials in many different languages.”
Innovation and New Projects on the Horizon
The motto for Alliance is “Innovate, Create, Advance!” Its team does this primarily by listening to customers and seeking to find out what areas are the biggest bottlenecks and the most challenging jobs to fill for pallet companies.
Two projects recently developed by Alliance Automation are a new line of conveyors redesigned from the ground up to reduce maintenance costs and the iPallet inspection system, which helps companies improve the accuracy of load counts and quality monitoring.
Wenninger explained why the traditional conveyor needed some love. He stated, “All the companies in our industry that are offering repair lines, sort lines, all of us have been buying the same conveyor from the same few handfuls of vendors, and it’s lightweight. There’s a lot of maintenance involved with bearings, rollers, etc. We’ve taken it upon ourselves to redesign a different, more robust conveyor system.”
Sheehan commented, “We have built prototypes and have done testing to show the performance. We do have data on the benefits of our conveyors and the long-term cost savings from a maintenance standpoint.”
The iPallet looks like something you might see at an airport. But it could change how everyone looks at recycled pallets. It’s designed to improve the accuracy of counting, grading and sorting for the incoming pallets from trailers.
Wenninger explained, “Recycling companies are bringing in thousands of pallets per day. And most of them have no idea what they are getting.” This causes problems as many recyclers pay flat rates per trailer or end up fighting with core suppliers over counts. He added, “If they run the iPallet and do their sorts coming out of the truck, they will know exactly what they are getting from sizes to grades to quantities.”
At the core of this system is data. Information is one of the most important things that will differentiate the winners and losers in the future. A better understanding of what is in each load helps the recycler reduce unnecessary repairs, better forecast what to pay for each load, determine true yield and costs, etc. Wenninger suggested, “I think the iPallet could be a tool that could be used to change the way that the industry buys used recycled pallets. And we’re giving accountability to the industry now.”
In seconds, the iPallet uses cameras, vision and laser scanning to grade, size and determine the quality of each pallet. Wenninger added, “The iPallet is an equalizer. It allows users to know exactly what they are getting and could help drive standardization in the industry.”
How can the Alliance team help you innovate and imagine the future of the industry? Its process starts with listening to the customer and taking technology used in other industries and applying it in novel ways to pallet and sawing processes. For more information on Alliance Automation’s innovative solutions, visit www.allianceautomation.com, email support@allianceautomation.com or call 419-238-2520.
