NASA's workhorse: AGVs

Automatic guided vehicles more than doubled parts throughput at the Kennedy Space Center's fulfillment center.

By Noël P. Bodenburg, Managing Editor -- Modern Materials Handling, 12/1/2006

NASA's logistics complex at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., was working with a parts order fulfillment system that was inefficient and labor intensive.

Workers were manually retrieving components without the use of radio frequency or bar codes. After each item was picked, they loaded it onto a conveyor that moved it to the destination.

After installing automatic guided vehicles, (Dematic) the space center is now able to process 200 components per hour, more than double the 94 it could handle previously. In addition, components are delivered to their destination within 30 minutes.

The automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) replace a large and unreliable conveyor system that transported parts through limited locations. The new system services additional areas, transporting tote and pallet loads weighing up to 2,000 pounds.

The new process, which was integrated with parts of the existing conveyor, allows components to be received by part numbers (there are more than 5,000 stock keeping units) and entered into the warehouse management system. The WMS tracks parts and keeps real-time inventory data.

AGVs deliver large parts from receiving to stations where lift trucks pick up the parts and deliver them to the automated storage/retrieval system (AS/RS). Smaller parts are placed in totes and carried by AGVs to the AS/RS.

Component retrieval and order fulfillment component requests can be placed from anywhere in the Kennedy Space Center. The receiving handling process operates in reverse to move items to their destinations.