Bob Trebilcock

Chrysler implements the materials handling system of the future
January 10, 2008

It’s lights out at Chrysler.

Now that I have your attention, let me make clear that the automaker isn’t going anywhere. To the contrary, Chrysler is employing lean manufacturing techniques, like the just-in-time, just-in-sequence delivery of parts, to better compete in one of the fiercest industries.

In this case, “lights out” refers to a materials handling system designed to store and deliver instrument panels to Chrysler’s assembly line in Belvidere, Illinois, with just two human touches: Once when a finished panel comes of the manufacturer’s line and once when a Chrysler line worker installs it in a vehicle. In between, it’s lights out as all materials handling operations are done automatically. 

Where John Dewar & Sons, which I wrote about the other day, strips materials handling down to the basics, Chrysler is a model of sophistication and synchronization: Materials handling doesn’t just reduce labor; it enables a lean inventory strategy by delivering the right parts for the right vehicle coming down the line. Better yet, it furthers Chrysler’s goal of removing as many non-value-ads as possible from the supply chain. “In a lean manufacturing system, material delivery can’t interrupt throughput,” says Steven Brostek, director of production control operations. “But since it’s not a value add to the customer, it has to be as lean as possible.”

In this case, leaning out the supply chain begins at the supplier’s plant. Completed instrument panels are automatically stored in an automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS). When an order for that panel comes from the factory, the AS/RS retrieves the panel and automatically delivers it to a pickup station. There, an automatic guided vehicle (AGV) loads it onto a truck for delivery to Chrysler’s plant.

Forget lift trucks. At the plant, panels are unloaded by a robot onto another AGV. At the assembly line, an indexer takes the panel off the AGV. No operator comes into play until it’s time to install the panel in a vehicle using an ergonomic arm assist device.

Lean manufacturing and innovative materials handling solutions are part of the reason Belvidere has been able to reduce its in-house inventory from an average of two days worth of parts to just hours or less, while producing more vehicles with fewer man-hours per vehicle than it used to produce. “To do what we’re doing now the way we used to operate, we’d have to have three times the employees,” says Brostek.

You’ll be able to read more about Chrysler in Modern Materials Handling this spring. Meanwhile, if you’d like to brief me about your most recent materials handling or information handling project, be sure to write me at Robert.Trebilcock@verizon.net. 

Posted by Bob Trebilcock on January 10, 2008 | Comments (1)