RECEIVING

The bulk of materials used to manufacture glass fiber—sand, silica and other compounds—arrives by rail and is stored outside of the facility in silos. PPG manufactures its products both to order and to stock. To begin the manufacturing process, materials are conveyed from the silos to furnaces (1)  where the components are mixed together and melted to form a liquid glass.

GLASS MELTING & WINDING

The liquid glass flows out of the furnaces through canals to fiber forming equipment (2)  where long fiberglass filaments are created and coated with chemicals so the fiberglass will later bond with the customer's plastic resins.

The long strands next are wound into large spools using winders (3)  that appear as horizontally rotating mandrels. Once a spool reaches a desired size, it is manually removed from the winder and placed onto a wheeled transport cart that holds 24 spools of the same stock keeping unit (SKU).

A worker scans the product bar code for the fiberglass spool and the location bar code of a cart pick-up station, also within the fiber forming area. This allows the software systems to track the cart through the remaining processes. The worker then wheels the cart into the pick-up station. One of the eight automatic guided vehicles (AGVs), summoned by the bar code scan, gathers the cart and takes it to the next process.

CURING & DRYING

The AGV transports the carts loaded with the 24 spools to one of two drying areas (4), depending on the product type. One area uses hot air to dry the fiberglass, while the other acts like a large microwave oven. Two robots load the spools into the drying ovens. Curing and drying takes 10–14 hours. Once complete, the robots place the spools back onto the carts and an AGV again picks up the load and takes it to a cool-down area (5)  where each cart is staged for 2–4 hours.

PACKING

Packing is performed according to customer requirements. To make tasks more efficient, groups with similar packaging are processed at the same time, then the line is changed over for other groups. AGVs automatically pick up the carts from the staging area according to their pack order and take them to the pack cells (6) .

Two robots lift off the individual spools and pass them through stretch wrappers. The robots then place the wrapped spools, each weighing about 45 pounds, onto pack-out tables. From there, the spools are transferred to pallets using assist devices. About four layers are created on a pallet with corrugated placed in between the layers. A lift truck then picks up the pallet and takes it to a stretch wrapper where the entire load is wrapped.

SHIPPING

Once wrapped, a lift truck transports some loads to the warehouse (7), where they are floor-stored, two pallets high. Product is also staged in the warehouse temporarily until enough is accumulated to create a full shipment. Many products, however, are needed for immediate customer orders. These items are loaded directly onto trucks at the three shipping docks (8) , bypassing the warehouse.