July, 2019
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Inovaxe’s Smart Storage Helps Imperial Electronic Assembly Stay Lean
Continued from page 21
and avoids line-down situations. The SMART InoAuto ultra-lean
material handling systems enable users to locate parts in less than four seconds and return a part in less than eight seconds. The carts are mo- bile or fixed, store from 560 reels in 2.5 ft2 (0.23m2 ) or store 1,120 reels in 4.5 ft2 (0.42m2 ), with a return on in- vestment of less than six months. Inovaxe has provided manufac-
turers with the capabilities to sub- stantially streamline their material handling systems and achieve a wide range of benefits, including: more than 90 percent labor reduction in pulling kits and returning parts; more than 90 percent space reduc- tion for storing SMT parts and kits; reduction of set up time and increase in machine uptime; reduction of op- erator travel time by 60 percent; elimination of paper for kit pull and feeder loading operation; traceability to each of the smart transactions; drastic enhancement of inventory ac- curacy, without counting parts; and a substantial reduction of errors in feeder set up.
Improved Kitting With the implementation of the
smart carts, Imperial has virtually eliminated the kitting process. The SMT operators now have the ability to call the next job from PanaCIM and watch as the required reels light up in the smart carts. The carts then prompt the operators to pick the reels in feeder location order, allow- ing them to load the reels onto the feeders as they are pulled from the carts. If any reels are pulled out of sequence or the wrong reel is pulled, an error message will occur and stop the pick process to ensure that the correct reel is retrieved every time. There is no more sorting through dis- organized bins to find the correct reel, and multiple operations have been reduced to one quick process. Not only has the kitting process
improved but Conte said that return- ing reels to stock for storage has nev- er been easier. “After completion of a job, we no longer have to worry that a reel may potentially be placed in the wrong stock bin back in the stock room,” he says. “We simply have to bring the reels back to our smart carts, scan the reel and place it in the closest available location. The carts store this information and will send us right back to that location the next time the reel is needed. Nothing gets misplaced and we no longer spend hours of downtime sorting through boxes of reels to find a mis- placed reel needed for production.” The benefits of implementing
the Smart carts have been realized throughout Imperial’s entire organi- zation. Some of the key improve- ments since implementation include:
SMT line, an older line that is not compatible with the PanaCIM soft- ware. Even after shutting down this line, the company has seen an in- crease of around 15 percent in throughput due to the efficiencies gained from its new processes.
l Obsoleting the company’s third
l Reducing SMT material handlers from four to one, which has allowed
Imperial to transition three posi- tions into other processes in its op- eration.
l Significantly reducing set-up and
downtime, leading to a more steady and efficient work flow. One of its most complex and steady runners used to take approximately five and a half hours to kit and an additional hour and a half to set up. Conte says that the entire process has now been reduced to 45 minutes, result- ing in extreme efficiency.
As for installation and customer
service, Conte said that working with the Inovaxe team during the installa- tion and integration process with Panasonic couldn’t have gone any smoother. “The team is professional, informed, and has the flexibility to always be available to support our needs,” he said. “We could not be more pleased with Inovaxe’s ultra- lean smart material handling system and its ability to solve our material handling and storage challenges. I
would not hesitate to recommend In- ovaxe’s smart material handling so- lutions.” Contact: Inovaxe Corp., 260 SW
12th Avenue, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442 % 954-531-1363 E-mail: in-
fo@inovaxe.com Web:
www.inovaxe.com and Imperial Electronic Assembly, Inc., 1000 Federal Road, Brookfield, CT 06804 % 203-740-8425 E-mail:
tony@impea.com Web:
www.impea.com r
Page 23
HELUKABEL has a new
PROFINET cable designated for robotic applications.
FACT: The HELUKAT PROFINET Type R Torsion is rated Category 5e and
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