Fork Truck Free News – Vol. 1, Issue 4

Why Mother Daughter Carts Are Growing in Popularity

Sarah Pearson Spector, Editor at Large for  MMH reviewed the increasing popularity of mother/daughter carts. Separating a cart from a train can be a challenge. If the cart needed is between two others, it has to be disconnected from both, manually dragged away, and the other two carts reconnected. Mother/daughter cart solutions have grown in popularity as a means to address that problem, said Ed Brown, CEO of Topper Industrial.

Industrial Equipment News reported that agricultural equipment manufacturer CNH Global builds tractors at its Racine, WI location for its Case IH and New Holland brands. These tractors work the fields on farms in over 160 countries.

As this staple of the farm fleet becomes more sophisticated, however, moving the tractors through the assembly process increases in complexity. Add the pressure of price competition in the tight agricultural machinery market, and CNH faces continual challenges.

Research into techniques for productivity improvements led manufacturing management to conclude that the plant could reduce capital costs on a new assembly line using a combination overhead conveyor with a floor-embedded chain drive system. This approach would save 50% over the slat conveyor systems previously used. Since the pallet design for the slat system was unworkable for this new line, CNH’s engineers set to work with engineers at Topper Industrial to come up with a specially designed chassis cart.

“Coupling the weight of these chassis with all of the challenging contours, protrusions, and angles meant we had a project that would be solved not so much on the CAD screen as on the production floor,” recalled Ed Brown, CEO of Topper Industrial. Plus, the cart has several roles to fill as it moves down the line. Most design issues revolved around engineering the height of the supports that propped the chassis at the point of the axle housing. Further complicating matters, the cart had to accommodate chassis designs for eight different tractor models.

If a support positions the chassis too low, the unit would nearly drag along the floor; too high, and the chassis would not clear various points along the production line. Initially, the design team had to solve the problem of the chassis being carried two inches too high. Casters presented the same difficulty. Topper engineers experimented with a range of caster sizes before they were able to zero in on the diameter for smooth cart movement without scraping the floor or hitting overhead obstructions. Topper uses a line of casters with sealed bearings for longer life with less maintenance.

Brown noted that in developing the line of Ergo-Cart workstation carts Topper had to become experts in which vendors are best at making these types of casters. Topper added forking pockets at the end of the cart. These enable transport lengthwise through the confines of the plant floor. At the start of the line, the forklift drops the cart and uses side forking pockets to maneuver the cart back into place. This larger model forklift sets the tractor tires into place onto the mounting fixture. Topper made the pockets extra wide to fit the larger forks on this vehicle.

Ergonomic access to the various areas of the chassis was another important consideration. The cart has steps with gripper pads to allow even shorter employees to attach components with a minimum of strain. Learn more.

---

Learn  more.

---