40 DC VELOCITY NOVEMBER 2015 www.dcvelocity.com
str
at
e
gi
c
in
s
ig
ht
C
ONV
EYAN
C
E
I
NNOVA
TIO
N
R
E
PO
R
T
miscellaneous components. To move all of that to and
from the plant, CKNA relied on “switchers”—a fleet of 12
over-the-road trucks and dozens of leased trailers. Not only
was it costly to run the drayage operation, but the extra
handling also created opportunities for errors and made it
harder to track inventory accurately.
The “breaking point” came several years ago, when
Nissan planned to launch a new model, and it was unclear
whether the operation would be able to manage the additional volume. Turner asked his colleagues to take a hard
look at Lewisburg’s internal logistics practices and find a
way to eliminate as much cost and inefficiency as possible.
If much of the excess cost, inefficiency,
and errors stemmed from moving items
over the road between the manufacturing
plant and the warehouses, then the solution
must be to eliminate those trips and hand-offs. The team proposed something completely different: build a DC immediately
adjacent to the plant. The two buildings
would be connected by enclosed “
travelways,” and all raw materials, finished goods,
and empty containers would move between
the buildings through those connectors. But
CKNA didn’t own the parcel where a DC
could be constructed, and its parent companies didn’t want to sink capital into buying land or another
building. Turner had a solution for that, too: lease a “build
to suit” DC, a strategy that would allow CKNA to get exactly what it needed at an acceptable cost. With support from
Calsonic Kansei US COO Eric Huch and Calsonic Kansei
Americas Chairman and CEO Shingo Yamamoto, who
approved funding, the project was a go.
AN UPHILL CLIMB
The new DC, which opened in April 2014, totals 310,000
square feet with 26 dock doors. CKNA moved everything
out of the leased warehouses and into this single facility,
which is located immediately adjacent to the plant. CKNA
was able to eliminate the fleet of switchers; instead, all items
move between the DC and the manufacturing plant via two
travelways connecting the buildings. These structures measure 12 feet wide and 93 feet long, with concrete floors and
metal roofing. Loads are carried through the connectors by
AGCs guided by magnetic tape. (Engineers had also considered using conveyors or forklifts but deemed them not
flexible enough and a safety risk, respectively.)
Conceptually, the use of automated vehicles to move
materials between the plant and DC was simple and
straightforward. But in reality, it was fraught with chal-
lenges. That’s where the motto “Work together, improve
together, succeed as one” really came into play. Before
ground was even broken on the new DC, CKNA called
in Meiji Corporation, a value-added reseller (VAR) and
systems integrator for automation products, and asked it
to bid on the AGC segment of the project. Meiji Corp., the
U.S. arm of Japan’s Meiji Denki, had previously installed
Model 100TT SmartCart AGCs manufactured by Jervis
B. Webb Co., a unit of Daifuku North America, in the
Lewisburg plant.
CKNA was looking for something that, at the time, was
not available: an AGC that could carry up to 4,000 pounds
of variously shaped items ranging in length from three to
eight feet, stacked up to eight feet high, up a 1.5-degree
grade; make tight turns at fairly high speeds without tipping
over or dropping anything; and safely come to a stop while
carrying a heavy load, even on the downhill.
There were other challenges, too, including figuring out a way to charge batteries in
carts that would be constantly on the move.
Lift truck drivers serving fast-moving production lines would need the ability to call
for loads and release AGCs without leaving their vehicles. Furthermore, the traffic
control system would have to work with
the existing fleet of SmartCarts as well as
interact with production control to prevent
the release of too many AGCs into the plant
at one time, explains Josh Popowski, Meiji
Corp.’s Chicago branch manager and engineering solutions project leader. It would be
a challenging assignment, to say the least. “The Calsonic
team pushed us out of our comfort zone to think of things
we had never thought of before,” he says.
Meiji called in experts from Jervis B. Webb to help it
determine whether such a cart could be built. Webb had
a heavy-duty concept vehicle called the SmartCart Model
300TT but had only produced a couple of prototype units,
recalls Vice President, Sales Bruce Buscher. Buscher himself
thought the model could be modified and standardized to
fit CKNA’s needs.
Webb’s engineers conducted a preliminary system simulation using the proposed DC layout. It could all be done,
they said, but it would not be easy—especially since there
was one more hurdle to overcome: CKNA required the
project to achieve a return on investment in 24 months or
less.
Turner gave the go-ahead, and all three companies set
to work.
DESIGN CHALLENGES
Webb had to make numerous changes to the prototype
AGC. The carts would have to carry all types of loads, from
reusable totes to tall racks full of door panels. The original
idea was to have an AGC towing a trailer behind it, but
space in the plant was too tight for a cart with a trailer to
make the necessary turns safely.
To maintain throughput, CKNA wanted to stack some
items, such as racks, up to a height of eight feet. The cart,
therefore, had to include a load-handling frame that could
