Chrysler Belvidere: Automation acceleration
Materials handling played a critical role when the automaker created a new manufacturing environment in Belvidere, Ill.
By Bob Trebilcock, Editor at Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 5/1/2008
Not so long ago, nearly 500,000 square feet of valuable floor space was dedicated to warehousing and storage at Chrysler's auto assembly plant in Belvidere, Ill. At any given time, two-day's worth of the parts and inventory needed for production were staged at the line or stored in the plant. If that wasn't enough, anywhere from 85 to 140 trailers full of inventory sat in the yard, ready to be unloaded at a moment's notice.
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Manufacturing equipment sits in the space once devoted to storage. Material is now aggregated into small lots at a nearby Integrated Logistics Center, or ILC, managed by a third-party logistics (3PL) provider (syncreon, 248-377-4700, www.syncreon.com) or manufactured to sequence by Chrysler suppliers in nearby plants. Instead of two days of production materials, Chrysler now keeps no more than 2 hours worth of materials in the plant.
The trailers coming through the gate— nearly one trailer every 60 seconds of every production day—no longer sit in the yard. As soon as those parts, components and modules are unloaded at the dock, they are delivered to the line by automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) (FMC Technologies, 800-922-9080, www.fmcsgvs.com) and tuggers, where they will be consumed and replenished in a matter of hours.
The change in the way materials are received, handled and delivered to the line are a reflection of Chrysler's new lean, corporate-wide approach to production, a transformation that began with the 3.2 million square foot Belvidere plant.
“What we're talking about is a complete makeover in the way we manufacture,” says Steven Brostek, director of production control operations. “Belvidere was the critical initial plant in our corporate plan to adopt a lean manufacturing profile.”
Lean by the numbers
By all accounts, the makeover has been a success. The most important number may be this: In 2007, the Belvidere plant topped a production record set in 1986, producing more than 335,300 vehicles.
More importantly, it set that record using fewer employees in materials handling (228 across three shifts vs. 119 on one shift) while managing more parts (3,801 vs. 2,570) and receiving more trailers (443 vs. 111) than in the past.
“To manufacture the same number of vehicles and models in our old way of manufacturing, we would have needed three times the employees we have in materials handling today,” says Brostek.
To make those numbers, Chrysler automated wherever possible the way parts and components are received at the dock and delivered to the line.
For instance, the number of lift trucks in the plant was reduced from 111 to 36. In their place, the number of AGVs was increased from 33 to 47, the number of tuggers used to pull dolly trains of parts increased from 7 to 65, and 16 robots are now used to automatically unload materials from trucks.
Becoming lean
The conversion at Belvidere was launched in late 2005 and continued for a year. Throughout that period, Brostek says, Chrysler added models and shifts to the mix.
Several principles guided the way manufacturing was restructured. Each had an impact on materials handling.
The first was the reduction in the amount of inventory held in the plant at any given time. “We now only want to purchase what's absolutely necessary to run the plant efficiently without holding millions of dollars of incremental inventory as buffer or safety stock,” says Brostek.
To make that possible, Chrysler eliminated internal storage and worked with a 3PL partner to develop the nearby Integrated Logistics Center. There, parts are received in bulk from suppliers and then delivered in small lots. Component part manufacturers that deliver directly to the plant now deliver just-in-time and just-in-sequence.
Meanwhile, storage space was converted to manufacturing space, since that's what adds value to the final product.
In addition to eliminating most internal storage areas, the size of workstations was also redesigned. “In the past, a workstation was 20 feet long,” says Brostek. “Today, the walk steps in the work cycle have been declared to be non-value added. That means we have to design processes and handling systems that work in an area that is only 5 to 7 feet long and that require no more than seven steps for material retrieval per work cycle.”
Lean materials handling
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To make those changes, Brostek's team employed a combination of AGVs, tuggers and robots that work in tandem with the plant's information management systems.
At the start of every day, Chrysler's production systems validate how much inventory is at the line while carefully monitoring the progress of every vehicle from the body shop to the paint line to the assembly hall.
As vehicles are assembled, the system deducts the parts called for on a bill of materials from that line side inventory. Whenever a reorder point is reached for a part, the system distributes an electronic replenishment signal.
That signal may go to the ILC, or it may go to the manufacturer of a part that is delivered in sequence like an engine, seat or instrument panel.
Once product is delivered to the dock, several different processes were established for unloading trailers and delivering the parts to the line, depending on the products being handled. They include:
Lift truck unload: While Chrysler has created fork-free zones in the plant, some products are still best handled by lift trucks. Nevertheless, the work area is contained. “The driver is basically taking a load off the truck, turning and depositing it on a roller conveyor,” says Brostek. Once the driver drops his load, a fixed scanner reads a bar code on the pallet or rack to identify the product. The system then calls for an AGV from the pool, directs it to the correct workstation to drop off the load and directs it to retrieve, and return the rack just emptied.
Robotic unload: Based on the signals sent to certain suppliers, like manufacturers of instrument panels, product is loaded in the reverse sequence so the last pallet or rack loaded is the first delivered to the line. When the driver locks the trailer in at the dock, the robot is signaled that the trailer is engaged and ready to be unloaded. The robot's vision system scans the trailer to position its arm for retraction and sets the pallet on a waiting AGV. Once the system confirms the pallet has been loaded it releases the AGV from the loading point.
Tugger unload: A limited number of parts are delivered on dollies. To handle these, a driver hooks a tugger vehicle onto the lead dolly and drives straight out of the truck, much like a locomotive pulling a string of boxcars. The tugger driver follows a prescribed delivery route through the plant. Drop off instructions for each dolly are delivered onto an electronic screen. The driver also picks up empty dollies as he continues along his route.
Conveyor unload:Conveyors are still used to deliver some parts to the line, including seats. The trailers are unloaded by dock stripping equipment—an extension arm that reaches in and pulls parts out of the truck and onto a conveyor that delivers them to the area in the sequence they will be installed on a vehicle.
Taken together, the new materials handling processes have enabled the transformation at Chrysler. “We understand that materials handling is necessary to build cars, but it's not a value-add that customers will pay for,” says Brostek. “For that reason, we have to be as lean as possible so we can deliver a vehicle safely, efficiently and economically. By making the transition to lean manufacturing and handling, we've done that at Belvidere.”
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