Page 50
www.us-tech.com
Partnering March, 2012
Automation Optimizes Parts Inventory at M/D Totco
By Patrick Roberts
location its 250,000-ft.2 and distribu- tion facility in Cedar Park, Texas, it was running out of space. The lead- ing supplier of control, instrumenta- tion and well data systems for drilling activities worldwide, the company has been introducing a broader product line, necessitating increased space for manufacturing, as well as requiring more space for servicing its leased and rented equip- ment which constitutes a sizable and growing segment of its business. Expanding the building horizontally was not an option. After a review of its facilities to
F
determine options for space opti- mization, M/D Totco decided to upgrade several areas of its plant — its main parts warehouse, manufac-
or M/D Totco, the need for more manufacturing space was criti- cal. After 25 years in the same
turing tool crib and electronics center warehouse. The new system, designed, built
and installed by Kardex Remstar, not only solved the space problem, it also increased inventory accuracy and cut inventory labor hours, allow- ing workers to be redeployed to other areas of the plant.
Wholesales, Manufactures, Rents M/D Totco wholesales, leases
and rents oilfield equipment, and manufactures non-laboratory scales and balances, electronic coils and transformers, process control instru- ments and oil/gas field machinery. M/D Totco maintains a fully-
integrated manufacturing facility with machining, fabrication, welding and laser capabilities for the produc- tion of electronic, mechanical, hydraulic and pneumatic assemblies,
Space- and time-saving vertical lift storage and retrieval module.
drilling companies, and equipment rentals. Consequently, the rental equipment eventually comes back into the plant to be serviced.
Manual Inventory Process Supporting the plant is a
joy ride
10,000-SKU, 50,000-ft.2 parts ware- house that is dedicated just to inven- tory, 80 percent of which is used for kitting work orders in manufactur- ing and 20 percent for replacement parts shipped to its customers. Circuit boards, electronic modules, media discs, rubber gaskets, epoxies, O-rings and PLCs are some of the $23 million in inventory that the warehouse manages. The plant’s inventory is extremely comprehen- sive; it still stocks products from the 1950s and 60s — hydraulic and pneu- matic technologies used in oil wells. Until recently, these parts were
Innovators in Wire Processing
UniStrip 2300 – New Dimension in Benchtop Wire Stripping
The UniStrip 2300 stripping machine with touchscreen user interface offers the best price / performance ratio in its class. It is fully programmable and doesn’t require any mechanical adjust- ments when processing different wire sizes. It can strip wires ranging in size from 32 – 10 AWG and jacketed cables up to 0.22“ in diameter. This innovative machine combines precision mechanics, short cycle times and user-friendliness for increased productivity, making your ride to success a joy. High accuracy and repeatability of the programmed values make the UniStrip 2300 extremely reliable.
Schleuniger, Inc. Manchester, NH | USA
www.schleuniger-na.com/US2300_US (603) 668-8117
To Be Precise. See us at APEX, Booth 1132
inventoried on shelved racking. When a part or kit order was received on a paper printout, the worker would pick by location with the aid of a ladder or cherry picker and load the part onto a cart. When the order was complete, the cart was taken to the manufacturing cell or to a staging area for shipping. This was a time-consuming and labor-inten- sive process for a warehouse that handles 30,000 individual part picks per month. Another inventory area is the manufacturing tool crib located on the plant floor, handling thou- sands of tools and consumables need- ed for manufacturing, such as car- bide drill bits, tool fixtures, safety equipment and gauges. This 2,000- ft.2 area was operated manually, and experienced a huge problem with poor tracking of tools, which cost the company many thousands of dollars annually in lost equipment. The third inventory area of the
plant is the electronics center ware- house, also on the plant floor, which services the electronics assembly manufacturing cells. This 800-ft.2 area inventories spools of wire, approximately 75 part numbers, some spools as large as two feet in diameter and thousands of linear
as well as specialty sensors and CVD (control vertical drift) equipment for down-hole azimuth and direction drilling. Its business is split between direct equipment sales to oil and
feet long. Wire was inventoried on rack shelving and the area was unmanned. When an order required wire, workers would need to sift through piles of wire spools to get to the items they needed, typically requiring 30 minutes to fill an order.
Going Vertical “The VLMs contain a vertical
series of shuttled trays — each 34-in. deep x 8 feet wide — within a 30-foot- high vertical housing,” explained Wilton Hockaday, Inventory Control & Warehouse Manager for the facili- ty. “The units reach almost to the 32- foot ceiling of the plant. Each tray can hold up to 1,100 pounds of parts. The VLMs have a much denser stor- age capacity than our shelving racks.” The shuttled vertical lift mod- ules are equipped with the latest put- to-light and pick-to-light technology, and a unique Transaction Infor - mation Center (TIC). The TIC is a light bar that runs across the front of the unit and directs the operator to the exact location of the part to be picked, and displays the quantity to be picked as well as the part number. The TIC assists the VLM opera-
tors with four basic functions: a) put- ting an item in the VLM shuttle loca- tion; b) picking a specific or active item; c) communicating a message such as a quantity and description; and d) completing the task and mov- ing on to the next. The VLM in the tool crib area is used to store, check- in and check-out tools for the manu- facturing floor. This system is inter- faced with CribMaster software, and the two provide a powerful system for inventory control. Workers submit requests for
tools to the crib attendant, who then pulls the tools from the VLM and delivers them to the manufacturing cell. The returned items are then checked back in by the tool crib work- er when they are returned by the cell. Similarly, in the electronics center warehouse, all of the wire spools have been organized within the VLM, for better control of inventory and streamlining accessibility of the wire.
Reduced Footprint The tool crib’s area has been
reduced from 2,000-ft.2 down to a total of 300-ft.2 by using the VLM, for an 85 percent reduction in ware- house space, freeing up over 1,700- ft.2 for manufacturing use. The electronics center ware-
house has also reduced its footprint because of the VLM, going from 800- ft.2 down to 72-ft.2. Combined, all three areas have given up more than
18,000-ft.2 to manufacturing. Contact: Kardex Remstar, Inc.,
41 Eisenhower Drive, Westbrook, ME 04092 % 800-639-5805 fax: 207-854-1610 Web:
www.KardexRemstar.com r
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108