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Intelligent material handling

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Intelligent material handling solutions have proven to be the key element for successful businesses in the panel processing industry. Shorter lead times, reduced production costs and a consistent level of quality are just a few benefits of the optimization and automation of material handling processes.

From the moment that the raw material arrives at your factory to the point when the finished goods are ready to be shipped, material handling is the key process that connects all other production steps.
Industry-wide, material handling is being considered a non-value adding necessity in production; contrary to cutting the raw material to size, applying edge tape or drilling holes, which are considered value added processes. Material handling does not add any monetary value to the final product, but when we consider that the average saw or CNC operator spends just as much time looking for the right material as for processing it, one might wonder whether smart material handling solutions shouldn’t be considered value-adding after all.
The market offers a wide range of material handling solutions; from raw material handling and automated workpiece transport systems to fully automated sorting, buffering, assembly and packaging lines. Generally the first point where smart material handling can be implemented is the raw material storage. Significantly higher production rates are achieved through intelligent management of the raw material stock. To give an example from a recent installation, a job, which took 1:15 hours for two operators, is now handled by only one operator in 45 minutes – this is a saving of 70%.

Due to the great success and popularity of these handling systems, the market today offers a wide range of smart storage and retrieval systems. An intelligent storage and retrieval system will optimize its stock based on the requirements of your company. Raw material is stored in stacks on the floor, which can either be all of the same material and size or chaotic rainbow stacks with various materials and sizes. The system knows at all times where each sheet is located and optimizes the sheet position based on material type and usage. This means that heavy runners are placed automatically close to the saw and/or CNC machine in order to optimize the efficiency on those machines. The main goal is to eliminate idle time on your production equipment.

While supplying the production machines with raw material has the highest priority, the system utilizes the time in-between to store/load new material into the system from the infeed place(s) and to optimize the panel positions based on usage and demand. At night most companies utilize the system to pre-stack panels in sequence for the next production day. Based on the production order (cut lists / nesting sequence) the system will supply each manufacturing machine just in time and sequence. Offcuts can be automatically reintroduced into the system or manually stored in an offcut rack. Manually stored offcuts are also managed by the IntelliStore software. Generally, offcuts have a higher priority in future optimization runs, which aids to keep the total amount of offcuts at a bare minimum while significantly increasing yield and performance.

Most systems are capable of handling all common board sizes such as 4x8, 5x10, 5x12 as well as larger sheets and smaller offcuts. Also, there is no limitation on board weights of up to 350 kg.
Storage and retrieval systems are extremely flexible in terms of layout and design. Whether it is one or more saws, nesting machines or the combination of both saw and nesting machines that need to be integrated, or whether there are specific limitations due to existing building structures.

Christian Vollmers is the president of HOMAG Canada Inc.
He can be reached at Christian.Vollmers@ homag-canada.ca
or visit the website at www.homag-canada.ca

 

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