GP8 pallet truck

A Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin plant of Honeywell International Inc is utilising four GP8 pallet trucks from Seegrid Corp for automated transport of materials and goods.

The automated guided vehicles (AGVs) move raw materials such as copper coils, cables and wire spools to manufacturing and deliver the finished goods to the warehouse.

"We are using the Seegrid GP8s to enhance the capabilities of my professional materials handling staff by providing them another set of forks to complete the cross-plant moves," says Michael Crichlow, the facility's cable and custom electronics logistics manager. "The AGVs allow me to use my materials handlers for the more precise placements and technical moves throughout the manufacturing floor and distribution centre. This is accomplished by eliminating empty fork time as the materials handlers move from one task to the next."

Crichlow anticipates "three dynamic results" from use of the AGVs: "an increase in cases picked per labour hour metric, increased support level for production operations and improved material flow and 5S adherence". (5S System is a Japanese-originated management tool for improving workplace efficiency.)

Honeywell purchased the pallet trucks and began operating them at the security products manufacturing site in late February.

The Wisconsin manufacturing facility is an operation of Honeywell's automation and control solutions business segment.

Seegrid of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania produces robotic vision-guided AGVs for materials handling tasks in manufacturing and distribution environments. The Seegrid state-of-the-art navigation technology requires no wires, lasers, tape, magnets or other infrastructure for navigation.