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Automation in injection molding often means dazzling and costly
technology, but Leitchfield Plastics dramatically boosted
productivity in its shipping and warehouse area with simple
automation from stretch wrap machinery leader Lantech.
The Q-300 XTPlus stretch wrap machine reduces a
fork-lift driver’s role to merely pulling a lanyard – while
still in the driver’s seat. The machine automatically starts the
film by holding it against a pallet load, then cuts the film and
wipes it down on completion. More important for productivity,
the machine has an integral accumulation conveyor so it can
automatically queue up to six completed loads for later pickup.
“You would not believe how this little bit of
information could improve the efficiency of our fork-truck
operations,” said David Johnson, maintenance lead at the plant.
“Our drivers now have extra free time to help make packaging and
straighten the warehouse. And we’re letting drivers from our
production operation load trucks for shipping, which frees time
for our shipping people to do other work.”
Leitchfield Plastics is one of six production divisions
of Jones plastic & Engineering, a privately-held custom
injection molder headquartered in Jeffersontown (Louisville),
Ky. The plant runs 20 presses ranging from 200 to 2,000 tons,
producing parts primarily for the appliance industry. The 95,000
square foot Leitchfield plant is ISO 9002 registered and runs
24/7, employing about 300 people. In addition to injection
molding, the plant offers many secondary services, including
heat transfer labeling, hot stamping, vibration or ultrasonic
welding, heat staking and kitting.
Finished parts are packed in cartons or bins, and then
palletized in loads three- to 10-feet high.
“Our stretch wrapper is located between our production
line warehouse and our shipping warehouse, so, in theory,
fork-truck drivers from the line warehouse bring pallets to the
wrapper, and our shipping warehouse guys pick them up – but that
kind of synchronized operation was hard to maintain so we often
had a bottleneck in that area,” Johnson said. In addition, the
stretch wrapper needed manual...
...Continued
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