FKI opens tech center

With last month's opening of a 31,000 square foot, $5 million North American Technology and Education Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, FKI Logistex (www.fkilogistex.com) sends a loaded message to the world of materials handling and to its customers: The company is committed to growing its North American operations, its customer base and its variety of product offerings.

By Tom Andel, Editor-in-Chief -- Modern Materials Handling, 8/1/2007

With last month’s opening of a 31,000 square foot, $5 million North American Technology and Education Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, FKI Logistex sends a loaded message to the world of materials handling and to its customers: The company is committed to growing its North American operations, its customer base, and its variety of product offerings. This facility will help the company live up to those commitments by providing a space for FKI and its customers to put technologies and technicians to work through a series of demonstrations, proof-of-concept trials and operator training sessions. 

Ted Clucas, president of FKI’s Manufacturing Systems Division.

Reg Gott, FKI's managing director, says the technology and education center represents a landmark in his company’s progress as a materials handling solutions provider. 

"This investment says much more about our confidence in our strategy than words can say," he says. "With our annual $800 million turnover, and North America being our biggest market, it's fitting that our first technology and education center be here."

Steve Ackerman, president of FKI Logistex North America, adds that the facility will also enable FKI to spread its technology around the world.

"We'll test technology here and apply the solutions elsewhere," he explains. "Working in conjunction with colleagues around the world we'll find international opportunities in Europe and Asia. It will also provide a think tank where engineers can brainstorm and continually find ways to broaden our technologies."

An example of the product of such brainstorming was demonstrated by combining the company's VHS Wedge merge into a system incorporating its UniSort shoe sorter and the new "MXT" sortation software module which together enable sortation at speeds over 400 cases per minute. The software helps set a three inch gap between cases moving at 650 fpm. Before applying this software, 10 to 15 inches was standard.

Ted Clucas, president of FKI's manufacturing systems division, told Modern that this facility will help his company stay on top of market changes, particularly as they relate to the changing shapes and configurations of packaging.

FKI Logistex's new North American Technology and Education Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.

"In food and beverage, there have been changes in packaging from big strong sturdy cases to nothing but shrink wrap," he says. "The smaller the packages the higher the rates have to be. That requires a change in technology. More discrete packaging going to more places requires a higher level of software and intelligence to be able to manage all those individual packages going in so many more directions. Consumer packaged goods manufacturers are being forced to package for individual consumers."

FKI's "think tank" may want to get its collective head around how consumer packaged good companies like P&G will serve the new "high-frequency stores" market. These are closet-size "mom and pop" shops that are springing up in emerging markets like Mexico to serve consumers with no more than a few pesos in their pockets--just enough to buy a single-use container of higher-end detergent, for example. Clucas says that's the kind of materials handling challenge FKI will take up in its new technology and education center.