There comes a time in the life of every manufacturing facility where major upgrades are needed if the company is to remain competitive. Such is the case with San Antonio-based Alamo Industrial.

"We are one of the largest manufacturers in the world of industrial mowing equipment for roadway and right-of-way maintenance," explains Reagan Hill, manufacturing manager at Alamo's Seguin, Texas facility.

The Seguin plant is over 30-years-old and many of its handling systems were aging and in need of immediate attention. Alamo's new management team began a planning process last November to overhaul the facility and adopt lean manufacturing concepts. They envision a system that, when completed, will be radically different from its current processes.

A new carousel system (blue unit left) at Alamo stores parts used in manufacturing as well as customer service replacement parts. The system has decreased dramatically the time required for picking.

"Our vision is to move to materials handling technology that will keep parts moving and never hit the floor," says Jim Simister, operations manager. "We do not want to have money tied up in parts that are just sitting around."

Alamo expects that its move to lean manufacturing will increase efficiencies, eliminate bottlenecks, reduce inventory on hand, improve forecasting, better utilize labor, and increase manufacturing flexibility. The first stage of the upgrade has already been completed.

"We realized early in our planning process that our mini-load storage system was completely outdated and we were forced to make an early decision on it before we had our complete plan in place." says Terry Pate, materials manager.

Alamo contacted its distributor/integrator (Total Handling Solutions, www.totalhandling.com) and a carousel system for storage of parts supporting manufacturing was recommended. The new two-unit system provides 8,700 storage locations and also holds replacement parts for customer service requirements.

Since being installed in March, the carousels have additionally provided greater storage density that has freed space in the facility's pallet rack storage. It has also tripled picking efficiency over the old mini-load system.

"Eight hours of picking have been reduced to about an hour and a half, and we have not even completely filled the carousels yet," says Pate.

The new carousels fit well within the goals for lean manufacturing by improving the product flow of stored items. Eventually, fewer parts for manufacturing will be held within them as the goal is to by-pass storage and receive most parts just in time directly at the line.

"The carousels will probably still hold our slower moving parts for the manufacturing floor as well as our after-market customer service parts, but that's Eutopia. We're still in the real world of today," adds Simister.

Alamo produces 30 different product lines of grass mowers, hedge equipment, tree trimmers, and related service items for state transportation and municipal maintenance departments. It also provides custom mounting of its mowers on customer tractors. Clients ship the tractors to Alamo, the mounting is performed, and then the tractor is shipped back to them.

In its current structure, the Seguin plant has two receiving areas. The first receives raw steel in bar stock and sheet forms. Trucks loaded with steel arrive daily and are offloaded using lift trucks or an overhead crane. The steel is taken to intermediate storage racks located adjacent to the machines that will consume it. The second receiving area processes all other component parts used in manufacturing.

An overhead crane moves bar stock steel from storage racks to welding and other processing areas. The crane also unloaded the steel when it originally arrived at the receiving dock.

Most of the deliveries to the four doors of this component receiving area arrive on pallets from over-the-road carriers or in cartons from parcel services. The trucks are unloaded and parts are taken by lift truck to a receiving area where items are verified and keyed into the software management system. In the near future, bar code scanning will be performed here to enter receipts.

Large items are then taken by lift trucks to pallet rack storage. The driver self-selects which of the 500 locations he wishes to store the pallet. He records each stock keeping unit (SKU) number and the location where it was placed on a ticket. The information on the ticket will later be given to data entry personnel who will key it into the facility's management system.

Small items are removed from their shipping cartons in receiving and put into totes. The totes are then placed onto wheeled carts and taken a short distance to a powered conveyor. The conveyor transports the totes to a carousel workstation for putaway.

Stored in the carousels are items such as hydraulic cylinders, seals, motors, decals, hardware, and other small parts and components used in mower manufacturing. The platform of the carousel workstation is equipped with a hydraulic lift that raises the worker up and down to the appropriate storage level.

Eight totes can be processed simultaneously at the workstation. Upon arrival, each SKU is manually keyed into the computer. The system is also designed with the ability to receive SKUs by reading bar codes – a feature that will be added to Alamo's processes shortly.

Once the carousel system recognizes the entered SKUs, the two 12-feet-high units spin to locations where the items are already found and the platform adjusts up or down. If any SKU is new to the system or a current shelf for a SKU is filled, then the carousels will spin to open shelves. Each of the storage shelves is 24 inches wide and can hold up to 2,500 pounds of parts.

As the spinning units reach the proper locations, lights next to the totes illuminate to indicate which tote's items should be putaway next. Lights also illuminate next to the assigned storage locations, and the worker places the items onto the shelves.

Work orders are generated daily along with lists of materials for models to be built. Pick tickets are created for any items required from the pallet racks. Lift truck drivers pull these materials and move most of them directly to assembly work cells. Some of the smaller items stored in the pallet racks may also be taken to kitting and pre-assembly processing areas.

Requests for SKUs in the automated storage are downloaded to the carousels as a batch of up to 1,400 parts. Pick-to- light is used here as parts are selected into eight totes at a time, with one tote representing each work order. The work order is called up on the computer screen and the carousel units spin to parts that are to picked for a particular assembly. Lights located adjacent to each carousel shelf indicate the SKUs and quantities to be selected. The light bar next to the totes also illuminates to show which totes require the picked SKUs.

Components arrive at docks (lower right) and are stored in pallet racks or the carousels. Raw materials are brought in at other docks (upper right) and are moved by crane to adjacent storage. Materials for fabrication are stored in the yard and brought directly inside for metal working. Other parts and materials are pulled from the pallet storage and carousels and sent to kitting areas for welding and subassembly. Some subassemblies pass through the paint system (top). Final assembly takes place in manufacturing cells (lower left). Completed products ship from docks (upper left).

Totes are then accumulated and taken by lift truck to kitting areas. Here parts and materials required for subassembly, welding, and final assembly tasks are gathered together. Once the totes arrive, the items are pulled from them and kitted with other components into 24 X 36 inch work baskets. The baskets then are taken by lift truck to their proper production areas.

Large prefabricated parts are stored outside in the yard. They are brought in by lift truck and hung on an overhead monorail that transports them first into pre-assembly and then through a paint system.

Finished assembly is performed within ten manufacturing cells. These cells are very flexible, as any model of offered product can be built within them.

Once assembly is completed, finished models are prepared for shipment. Some products ship as knockdown units that require a small amount of assembly once they reach their destinations. These travel to a kitting area where additional parts are gathered and the unit and kits are strapped down onto a pallet for shipping from the facility's three outbound doors.

Units that are custom-mounted directly onto the clients' tractors are simply driven, tractor and all, onto an outbound truck. An overhead crane also assists in loading other large mower and trimming products.

Alamo's management feels that once its own systems are trimmed through lean manufacturing principles, it will keep its customers mowing along for many years to come.

Click on this icon to read about two other facilities that use carousels to support manufacturing.