HEART TRUSS, LANSING, MICHIGAN

Material Flow Challenge:

High volume production facility, with "state of the art" production equipment investment, experiencing a material flow bottleneck behind automated saws. Original out-feed system had lumber manually stacked onto carts. Management expressed concerns regarding the potential for worker injuries that could result from the repetitive, manual activities associated with manually stacking lumbar at the pace they had expected their automated saw investment to operate.

Equipment Solution:

A PCS system was implemented to Auto-Stack lumber at a pace up to 60 boards per minute. Lumber is machine stacked in lengths from 3' to 20' onto separately powered roller conveyor segments designed to index jobs downstream for job banding, identification, and further handling by forklift.

System Benefit:

Lumber is consistently stacked at a pace exceeding automated saw requirements. The catcher position (often requiring (2) people during runs of longer or larger dimension lumber) can now be attended by (1) individual. Lumber is stacked by machine. Carts and associated manual maneuvering are eliminated with the introduction of powered conveyors. Throughput is greatly improved, and exposure to work related injuries is significantly reduced.