Lean manufacturing: Want to get lean? Think casters.

When you think of lean manufacturing, you probably don’t think about casters. Heck, if you’re like me, you probably don’t think about casters at all. But a press release about the new KIA Motors automotive assembly plant in West Point, Ga. had me looking at casters in a new light.

The plant is a marvel of materials handling automation and lean manufacturing principles. But the release from Caster Concepts, a Michigan-based caster manufacturer, described how the company had worked with KIA for nearly a year to develop a caster for the carts that will be used to move parts and components from the receiving dock to the line in a Just-In-Time and fork lift free automotive plant.

I gave Caster Concepts a call and asked the obvious: Why would anyone spend nearly a year designing and testing casters? 

Good question, said Williams Dobbins, the company president, and John Turner, Caster Concepts’ regional sales manager, when I got them on the phone. Turns out, while you and I may think of a caster as a commodity, Caster Concepts is premised on the idea that not all casters are created equal.

“Most of the time, the caster is an after thought,” conceded Turner. “With KIA, we were more proactive. We tried to help them understand the replacement costs of a poorly designed caster as well as the costs associated with back and shoulder injuries from straining to pull a cart with the wrong caster.”

Turns out, it can take a lot of muscle to move a load weighing up to 2,500 lbs on a cart. “Preventing a back injury that can run from $30,000 to $100,000 is a big issue, and KIA recognized that up front,” said Dobbins.

To come up with the right caster, KIA whittled a group of six potential suppliers down to three. From there, they put potential casters to the test, trying out various size wheels and loads in ergonomic push/pull tests before settling on a precision caster with sealed ball bearings and a polyurethane wheel from Caster Concepts.

The next step, Caster Concepts worked on casters for KIA’s suppliers, who are sending their products into the factory on carts. “The suppliers are just delivering the carts, but it’s KIA’s employees who have to move them through the plant,” says Turner. The suppliers casters not only had to be ergonomic, they also had to be durable enough to withstand jostling during the transportation from a sequencing center to the plant. And while the KIA design addresses issues around pushing and pulling a cart, for other customers the company has designed casters to address noise issues.

“A lot of people think of a casters as a commodity they can get anywhere,” says Dobbins. “In part, that’s true. But if they look more closely, they’ll see that a caster can affect their business down the road. For the customer that’s thinking longer term, we can provide a custom designed caster that meets their needs at near or under the long-term value of a standard caster.”