Truck plant shifts into overdrive
The revitalized PACCAR facility puts the pedal to the metal for a 50% production increase with thehelp of overhead handling systems.
By Tom Feare -- Modern Materials Handling, 2/1/2000
They're building trucks again in Sainte-Thérèse, Quebec, Canada. Shiny, new Kenworth and Peterbilt models now roll out the plant gate, move down Rue Sicard, and head out onto the maze of highways that surround nearby Montreal destined for customers across North America.The new PACCAR plant, however, barely resembles the old facility opened on the same site in 1962 and closed in 1996. "Except for part of the roof and supporting columns," says Gilles Gervais, plant manager, "we basically razed the area."
New equipment and systems were installed before the plant reopened last August. They are part of a $135 million (Canadian dollars, or about $94 million in U.S. dollars) investment PACCAR has made in the facility.
This new plant takes full advantage of overhead materials handling technologies. Ergonomics in workstation and job design also is stressed. And the plant operates with a very lean management structure that brings decision making down to the factory floor in many instances.
"We studied all the best practices at other PACCAR truck assembly plants," explains Gervais. "Then we took them, improved upon some practices or adapted others, to fit our own layout and the footprint of the old plant."
Working within that footprint's limitations, however, gave Gervais and his PACCAR team the opportunity to use overhead handling systems. They free up the factory floor space below, making for an uncluttered and safer shop floor work environment, and provide storage and line buffering capabilities, among their various materials handling benefits.
An overhead power-and-free conveyor system on the mezzanine level, for example, provides storage and sequencing capability for truck parts coming from the paint shop and destined for the trim shop. In effect, this system works much like "a very fancy clothesline," Gervais says, or like the garment storage line one finds at a dry cleaners. But in this case, it's much smarter and transports much heavier items.
Within the chassis assembly area, another overhead system facilitates production: An over-and-under conveyor equipped with J-shaped hooks gives Paccar employees a highly ergonomic means to handle heavy (2,800 to 6,000 lbs.) and lengthy (20 to 42 ft.) truck frames during assembly.
The turnkey supplier of these two handling technologies (Acco Systems, www.accosystems.com ) worked closely with the Paccar team to design the systems to meet the truck assembly plant's requirements.
A multi-million dollar plant
New handling systems and the other kinds of assembly equipment installed at the Sainte-Thérèse plant represent a multi-million dollar investment in revitalizing the facility and creating 361,000 sq ft of production space that is more efficient than that of the old plant.
Currently operating in a ramp-up phase to full production, the plant was designed to custom produce trucks for the Class 6 and 7 categories. Essentially, these are vehicles for short haul, urban delivery, and medium-duty construction applications.
At full capacity, the plant will assemble 40 trucks (cab, hood, powertrain, wheels, and chassis only) per day during a single shift-or more if other shifts are added. Forty trucks assembled daily is an increase of nearly 50% from the maximum of 27 trucks per day at the old facility, Gervais explains.
White trucks in many varieties
Many of the trucks moving through assembly at the Sainte-Therese facility are painted white. That's the chosen color for some four out of five trucks in Class 7, Gervais says. Customers will add their own company logos and slogans to personalize the trucks.
Even if most trucks are white on the outside, inside they vary considerably. Counting up cab interior and motor options, chassis lengths, and other features-along with whether the brand of truck is a Kenworth or a Peterbilt- results in great variety in what rolls off the assembly line.
With output at 13 trucks per day as of late last year, the time span between assembly of two identical trucks might be as long as three days, Gervais explains.
Design for JIT manufacturing
"We have no warehouse here," Gervais points out, illustrating how the plant works on a just-in-time basis with its suppliers of parts. "We keep very little stock in house."
Thirty-one receiving docks "are strategically located around the facility so that JIT parts are delivered as close as possible to their point of use on the appropriate assembly line and at specific workstations." Many incoming parts arrive in kitted form for ease of assembly. And a kanban system helps support stocking the proper levels of parts.
Meshing the major subassemblies of a truck together in a timely manner with little or no wasted motion requires planning. It also needs a big assist from materials handling. The overhead power-and-free conveyor system up on the plant's mezzanine level helps control material flow through its sequencing and buffering capabilities.
The system consists of a delivery loop, a re-circulating loop, and three vertical transfers. It holds painted parts on dollies until their delivery to the trim shop. And it provides temporary storage for up to 60 truck hoods and 30 cabs, and moves specific parts into their respective queues in proper pick order for further assembly.
Parts mounted on mobile dollies are loaded into one of the three vertical transfer devices and enter the system randomly. Software tracks each specific identified part and its location by linking that part to an assigned, numbered power-and-free carrier as determined by an optical code reading process. The software also accurately sequences parts for delivery to the trim shop as they are called for, transporting part and dolly down to floor level through one vertical transfer, or "drop," for hoods, another "drop" for cabs.
Parts for a specific truck model move through assembly in different time frames. At the current production rate, a truck's cab production typically starts 5 days before its chassis assembly, for example. Cab and chassis will be matched up correctly, however, because this overhead system provides the needed buffering capability for proper materials flow, Gervais explains.
Because parts also are delivered directly to the next work area, the system also minimizes personnel travel. With the cab or hood held on its respective dolly, assembly technicians have a mobile work piece on which to perform assembly.
Like night and day
Assembly technicians who have worked at the old plant and now the new facility on chassis, or frame, assembly find there's a big difference between the old and new methods of handling heavy (up to 6000 lbs.) and lengthy (to 42 ft.) truck frames. "They say it's like night and day," Gervais says.
Now an over-and-under conveyor does much of the handling work. J-shaped hooks mounted on parallel rails support the truck frames. A set of two hooks holds each frame. The hooks are adjustable so they can handle a wide range of frames.
At the start of frame assembly, an elevating load station automatically loads a frame onto the hooks. As the conveyor moves a frame through assembly, it adjusts the workpiece to an ergonomically correct position. The shop floor under the conveyor, meanwhile, is free of obstructions. And assembly technicians have full access to the frame from all sides. Power tools needed for assembly steps are held within the conveyor structure for easy access.
When frame assembly is completed, an automated transfer "car" equipped with lift tables lifts the frame off the hooks and moves it forward for pickup by an overhead crane.
Manufacturer Profile
PACCAR Assembly Plant,
Sainte-Thérèse, Quebec, Canada
Plant builds Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks for urban delivery
(especially for e-commerce companies),
medium-duty construction purposes
Plant Manager:
Gilles Gervais
Facility Facts:
Investment of $94 million
(U.S.) in renovated facility
Production begun August 1998
361,000 sq ft of production space
325 employees as of December 1999
Single-shift production of 13 trucks/day December 1999. Plant is designed for 40 trucks/day output on single shift at full capacity, more with other shifts added
Overhead Conveying
Systems Supplier:
Acco Systems: 810-755-7500
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