Efficient Product Handling
Fast Efficient Solutions to support Lean Production.
A key ingredient in achieving Lean Production operations is having good work practices to monitor and move the product (and components) around the factory.
Anyone who has ever worked in a high volume/high speed operation will vouch for this.
Organizing product flows, maintaining buffer stocks and keeping track of shop stock levels all too often proves elusive. Line stoppages, overstocking and product damage often result.
Over the years, ATS have completed many engineering projects to resolve problems in this field. There is never a single right answer, always a solution which fits the product.
At Faurecia, the
problem was non-stackable product, which needed to be handled with care and organization. The ATS solution = modular hanging rack systems which kept the high quality product in good order, enabled ease of handling without the need for fork trucks and enabled flexibility to deal with the ever changing production volumes and space constraints.
Application of an efficient kan-ban system was then applied to produce an efficient environment. Further developments being introduced include real-time IT based “operator instruction screens” and “shop stock dashboards”; completing the loop to a well controlled operations.
At GM in Mexico, the issue was
the weight of the handling equipment(combined with the product) was difficult to handle. Injuries and accidents resulted, causing both cart and product damage.
The ATS solution here = redesign of the carts to both reduce weight and increase strength and durability. With over 600 units now in service, the result has proved to be quite successful by combining the best of Process Re-engineering, Mechanical Design and IT Systems to produce maximum returns.
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This ATS Project involved developing a process behavior simulation of a Water Treatment Plant for the DSP (Direct Sheet Plant) at a steel giant in The Netherlands.
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We received an order from a laser welding Company for control software development and visualization of a machine that produces "pillow plates". "Pillow plates" are produced by welding two metal plates into a circular pattern. By using high pressure air between two sheets a hollow space is created and this again creates an insulating wall. "Pillow plates" are among others used in heat exchangers.
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Fast Efficient Solutions to support Lean Production.
A key ingredient in achieving Lean Production operations is having good work practices to monitor and move the product (and components) around the factory.
Anyone who has ever worked in a high volume/high speed operation will vouch for this.
Organizing product flows, maintaining buffer stocks and keeping track of shop stock levels all too often proves elusive. Line stoppages, overstocking and product damage often result.
[...]
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When you’ve designed a production line to meet a given output level and your customer demand reaches more than double that level, you’re working three shifts, seven days a week and you still can’t keep up, you need to take action. You essentially have two choices – you invest in a second line or you fix the existing one to increase throughput. The latter is what Faurecia chose on their Malibu assembly line.
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Managing water and waste water treatment combines simple pumping stations with complex waste water treatment and central control stations over large geographical areas.
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For a company that is specialised in selling chemicals to companies who use water for industrial cooling and heat exchange systems. To prove the effectiveness of their systems they decided to build mobile test systems to measure water quality at customer locations.
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ATS has been involved in hundreds of projects for the steel industry over many years. Control applications using a wide variety of PLC and SCADA systems for
ovens, rolling mills, transport systems, cranes and peripheral activities such as water treatment and cooling have been implemented in many plants in different
countries.
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This project covered the complete automation of the production process of
Ameron. A JUMO Dicon 501 program controller and a SCADA-package PCVue 32 from Arc Informatique were used to control the process.
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Another of ATS’s very first applications involved the implementation of PLC’s for transport conveyors. More recently an ATS engineer helped to design and implement the Operator Interface and Control on a crane and conveyor system.
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