Topper Industrial helps with Fork Truck Free Lean Journey

April 11, 2018 Events , Fork Truck Free Info 2742 Views

Topper Industrial worked with James Skyrm, Lean & Continuous Improvement Engineer at Poclain Hydraulics to move toward a Fork Truck Free solution for their North American facility, south of Milwaukee WI, where sales, R&D, and manufacturing services are located. The case study is illustrated in a new whitepaper. The journey began when Skyrm was told that fork trucks were the most dangerous and inefficient pieces of equipment on the shop floor. In terms of translating product across of the shop floor, Skyrm and his team discovered some inefficiencies. Topper Industrial founder, Ed Brown, showed Skyrm several different industrial carts to determine what would be most lean and effective. Going Fork Truck Free became the obvious choice.

Skyrm had his team looked at workflow and packaging for every part and saw many great ergonomic advantages. The team then needed to decide how and when materials were going to be delivered within the plant. There are couple different methodologies in the marketplace with each having different benefits. The company chose a Fixed Frequency Variable Quantity approach, fixing their route frequency at a specified time à every hour for example. Then using the data previously collected in the PFEP they could simulate the internal logistics system, precisely calculating the exact dimensions of the line side racking and optimum delivery equipment. The result was generated efficiencies for logistics and production.

In the end the company met all project targets. By breaking the entire undertaking down into seven bite-sized kaizen events, each process improvement was tackled one at a time. Skyrm added that the company now has added agility and flexibility with a Topper Industrial tugger system.

To read more, go to: www.forktruckfree.com/ftf-lean-journey

Topper Industrial, leaders in the material handling equipment industry, will be exhibiting at MODEX 2018 April 9-12, 2018 at booth B4475.
About Topper Industrial For more than twenty years, Topper Industrial (www.topperindustrial.com) has been and continues to be a leading manufacturer of material handling equipment. Topper provides lean material handling solutions to the supply chain.

Topper Industrial is able to engineer and design Industrial Carts (Mother / Daughter Cart Systems, Quad Steer Carts or Tracking Carts, Specialized Delivery Carts, Transfer Carts with Roller Deck, Static Carts, Rotation Carts, Tilt Carts or Kitting Carts), Industrial Cart Components (Parts Department), Industrial Containers (Corrugated and Wire Mesh Containers), Pallets, Lift/Tilt Systems, and Racking. Topper Industrial designs all products with ergonomics in mind, focusing on ease of use and best positioning of material to get the job done. Topper Industrial is a proud member of MHI.

 

For further assistance and inquiries on Topper Industrial Material Handling Solutions, please contact sales@topperindustrial.com or visit www.topperindustrial.com.

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