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Upscale Residential / Commercial Appliance Material Handling and Test In Motion Production System

The Challenge:
To design a complete material handling and control system solution that would accommodate the entire production flow and take each product through the rigorous testing process.

• Design a test system to handle the production rate of one unit every 82 seconds.
• Minimize the amount of accumulation needed for these tests by utilizing overhead mobile electrification loops to test the refrigerators in motion.
• Design a wireless production test system for over 300 units testing simultaneously
• Design a custom data collection server solution to record all test data via wireless communication
• Incorporate RFID tags into the material handling control solution to track data to specific product serial numbers and product locations in the system.
• Design a distributed control system to handle over 1200 conveyor zone sections and 8000 points of discrete I/O
• Minimize noise from over three hundred pallet locations by using chain driven powered roller conveyors.
• Implement a distributed SCADA system for full process monitoring and control.

Solution:

• Implemented Testing in motion through the use of mobile electrification which greatly reduced the number of accumulation conveyors required to complete the extensive testing process.
• Developed a wireless data collection node and server using embedded processor technology
• Used wireless Zigbee technology to provide the ability to simultaneously test over 300 units.
• Implemented a distributed I/O architecture (ASI Bus) to effectively and efficiently control over 1200 conveyor zones
• Incorporated RFID technology to positively track and record production and test data
• Using powered chain driven live roller conveyors reduced the cost of spare parts and provided zone length flexibility for future product design.
• Chain transfers provided a means to automatically convey refrigerators to each work station.
• Three high speed transfer cars eliminated the need for twenty four chain transfers and provided a significant savings.

Impact to the Customer:

• Streamlined the entire testing and production process.
• Provided the ability to test over 300 units simultaneously while in motion.
• Reliably tracked and recorded all production and test data by unique product serial number using RFID technology
• Products flow through the system with minimal operator intervention.
• System expansion is built into the design for future growth.

 

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