BY TOBY GOOLEY, SENIOR EDITOR
CONVEYANCE INNOVATION REPORT
ONE OF CALSONIC KANSEI NORTH AMERICA’S
mottoes is “Work together, improve together, succeed
as one.” That can-do attitude was clearly evident in the
way the automotive supplier’s supply chain organization
approached its task when asked to cut logistics costs and
eliminate inefficiencies in its Lewisburg, Tenn., manufacturing and warehousing operations.
Rather than settle for incremental improvements in
existing processes, which included shuttling loads by truck
between a plant and warehouses located a few miles apart,
Mike Turner, the company’s senior vice president, purchasing, supply chain management, and total cost reduction, and his colleagues came up with something completely different: a brand-new distribution center connected to
the manufacturing plant, with a fleet of automatic guided
carts (AGCs) to transfer loads between the two.
The ambitious plan presented both financial and engineering challenges, but with help from the AGCs’ supplier
and manufacturer, it moved ahead. The project has been
so successful that Calsonic Kansei North America (CKNA)
hopes to replicate it elsewhere. And no wonder: The AGC
portion of the project alone has saved the company millions of dollars and achieved a return on investment (ROI)
in just 14 months.
FRESH THINKING
CKNA is a unit of Calsonic Kansei, a supplier of auto-
motive parts and components based in Japan. Calsonic
Kansei’s main products include cockpit modules, exhaust
and air conditioning parts and systems, instrument panels
and clusters, and electronics. It has a presence in Europe,
Asia, and North and South America, and counts many of
the world’s largest automakers among its customers.
North American headquarters are located in Shelbyville,
Tenn.; additional facilities are located in Tennessee,
Mississippi, Michigan, and Mexico. The Lewisburg plant,
which makes plastic and electronic parts and components,
ships 65 to 75 truckloads a day to vehicle assembly plants
owned by Calsonic Kansei’s parent company, Nissan Motor
Co., in Smyrna, Tenn., and Canton, Miss.
Like many businesses that experience rapid growth,
CKNA eventually reached the point where its order vol-
umes exceeded its physical infrastructure’s capacity. To
keep pace, the company had to lease additional warehouse
space, requiring as many as four buildings to store raw
materials, empty racks and containers, finished goods, and
strategicinsight
www.dcvelocity.com NOVEMBER 2015 DC VELOCITY 39
Starting
over
Calsonic Kansei North America abandoned its
old internal logistics processes and adopted a
completely new approach, eliminating local
drayage, building a brand-new DC, and
installing custom-designed automatic guided
carts. The award-winning project achieved
ROI well ahead of schedule.
