Assembly - April 2009 - (Page 25)

MEDRAD Inc.’s flow racks ensure that the parts its operators need are close at hand. has equipped the ﬂow racks with three storage levels and three lanes. The racks have been conﬁgured so they all ﬁt within the company’s overall palletstyle racking system. The assembly area has been situated in aisle ways between the pallet racks, so that parts are much easier to deliver, with the upper rack bays used for bulk storage. “We were able to add six new sections of pallet racks to the storage area simply because of the space savings afforded by the implementation of these rackwithin-a-rack systems,” Cicchirillo says. “With our orders and production typically hitting peaks in the second half of the year, when storage area becomes a premium, the new racks were highly beneﬁcial and economical as compared to alternatives.” The company’s ﬂow racks include casters, which make them easier to move for housekeeping or for creating new or different work areas. The racks are comprised of plastic-coated steel pipe, mechanical joints and hardware accessories, which allow users to specify their custom application needs. The pipe sections can be easily cut to required lengths, while assembly is done with metal joints that clamp onto pipe sections via a threaded fastener. Metal joints are removable and reusable, to facilitate custom applications or ﬁne- tuning after initial construction. A wide range of accessories, including dividers, picking lights, stops, clamps, mounts and adjustableheight feet, is available to meet different manufacturing needs. For more on ﬂexible workstations, visit www.creform.com or call 800839-8823. Robots Clear Machining Bottleneck M orrill Motors Inc. (Erwin, TN) manufactures electric motors and motor accessories used in a wide range of applications and products, including supermarket display cases, beer coolers, commercial ice machines and beverage dispensers. As part of its continuous improvement efforts, the 60-year-old company recently decided to do something about a bottleneck that was taking place in one of its machining stations immediate prior to motor assembly. Speciﬁcally, the company was using one operator to load and unload motor housings onto a multi-spindle machining system, and a second operator to load the housings onto a single-spindle machine to ﬁnish the housings’ backsides. This arrangement caused a number of problems in terms of productivity and product quality, due to the fact that the company’s operators did not always load the parts correctly. The process was also slow, to the point where the company found itself almost continuously running extra shifts to keep up with demand. Finally, the company was worried about the possibility of worker injury. Operators had to reach inside the machines to load and unload the parts. On occasion, an operator would be sprayed by the machines’ coolant, which could cause skin irritation. “Inconsistent loading styles from shift to shift slowed production. By implementing robotics in its manufacturing operations, Morrill Motors has improved both cycles times and product quality. www.assemblymag.com April 2009 / ASSE M B LY 25 http://www.creform.com http://www.assemblymag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Assembly - April 2009

Assembly - April 2009 Contents Editorial Automation Profiles New & Noteworthy Assembly Plant of the Year Down the Line Welding Beads Quality in Assembly Assembly Lines Assembly in Action Standard Helps Suppliers Take Flight Plastics Under the Hood Leak Testing Auto Parts Press for Success Products Advertisers Index Classified Leading Lean

Assembly - April 2009

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