Managing volume and variety is part of the challenge of the plumbing repair parts division of Moen, a top faucet manufacturer. The company's Specialty Division assembles, packages, and ships large quantities of repair parts and kits for faucets, drains, showers, and toilets from a 250,000 sq ft facility in Wheeling, Ill.

A three-year re-engineering of the plant floor had to be achieved while production rose 25%. "Flexibility, productivity, and ergonomics were the three areas of importance," says Steven Ruch, manufacturing manager. All had to be addressed for the project to be judged successful, he adds.

Cleated belt conveyors were among the systems installed that met these objectives. The Moen division put in 17 of these conveyor systems. The conveyors feature an adjustable z-frame design that can be set up in a variety of configurations to meet different application requirements. The conveyors adjust, for example, from a 25-degree to a 60-degree incline. They are available in widths from 8 inches to 24 inches and in lengths from 4 ft to 25 ft in 1-ft increments. Belt speeds range from 8 ft/min to 130 ft/min for loads up to 100 lb.

Moen adjusts these conveyors, for example, to meet the out feed heights and flow requirements of the 9,000 different parts it packages.

Because its product variety is so broad, production runs are short. An average production order takes just 90 minutes to complete. Versatile equipment must be capable of making short, efficient changeovers.

As part of Moen's re-engineering effort, Ruch set 15 minutes as the time limit on accomplishing all changeovers. With the adjustable conveyors, changeovers are made in 2 minutes, with plenty of time to spare.

These conveyors also are "ergonomically sound and sensible," says Ruch, because they reduce the amount of bending and stretching required by an operator. "When we evaluated workstations for the entire production area, we understood there's not a lot of value-added for somebody to lean over, bend over, and pick up a part." So the conveyors were integrated into the work cells to improve ergonomics and they operate now in a majority of these cells.

Dorner Manufacturing
800-397-8664
www.dorner.com