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| Industrial Scientific Corporation, Oakdale,
Pennsylvania, is the industry leader in portable gas detection
and a major manufacturer of fixed point gas detection systems. |
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| Industrial Scientific helps monitor
safe conditions in work areas for industries ranging from oil,
mining and waste management to fire departments, breweries,
chicken farms - even outer space. The space shuttle and every
manned space craft uses ISC monitors. |
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| The company has been growing at a phenomenal
rate of 20 to 30% a year. This presented a difficult challenge
for the production department which was eased, in part, by increased
storage capacity and organization from Hanel Storage Systems. |
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| Addressing the problem. |
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| According to Vince Schreiner, SMT Coordinator,
the company was using mobile carts to supply parts to the production
area. At its rate of growth, manufacturing would have soon required
a new building if something was not done. |
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| Industrial Scientific looked at several
solutions to storage: |
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considered
expanding its existing system of mobile carts |
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analyzed
high bay storage |
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analyzed
various automated systems such as Hanel |
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| The company decided that automation
provided the most benefits. It arranged with Hanel to conduct a pilot study
using one vertical carousel. ISC personnel considered space, inventory and
productivity. Vince Schreiner and his crew discovered that the 200 to 300
square feet of floor space which had been consumed by mobile carts was reduced
by the Hanel to just 67 square feet. Inventory control was handled nicely
by the Hanel MP12 processor using Hanel CIM software. To top it all off,
the Rotomat produced a payback in less than a year. Based on these results,
Industrial Scientific decided to add another unit to manufacturing and three
additional machines in other areas. |
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| Hanel Rotomat Carousels provide flow
to manufacturing. |
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| ISC uses a two-carousel system in a
very effective way. The No.1 machine offers free and ready access of parts
to all workers and supports day-to-day manufacturing. The No. 2 machine
is equipped with Hanel CIM software to monitor inventory. It counts numbers
of parts in and out and supports day-to-day inventory control. |
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| Since Vince is responsible for managing
inventory, he appreciates the benefits of the CIM software package. The
system lets him know when inventory of an item is down to the last reel.
This tracking method gives him ample time to respond. Vince is also impressed
with what he calls the second line support syndrome, i.e. CIM supports running
two different assembly lines at once. One line is used for high volume production.
The other line is used for prototyping and limited manufacturing runs. |
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| The total volume of parts
stored in the two Rotomats includes over 1000 different part
numbers with a total part count of 6 to 10 million pieces at
all times. |
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| Workers are pleased that
they can work at their own pace and method. With the Hanel system,
there is no right or wrong way to access parts. Workers can
use the scanner, key in codes or hand pick parts from the free
and ready access machine. The CIM controlled machine has already
accounted for inventory. |
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| Having free access to parts
allows manufacturing changeovers to be made substantially easier.
During a typical day a line might change over 3 or more times.
According to Bob Reese, Lead Technician, "Manufacturing
setups that traditionally took 4 hours were reduced to about
20 minutes, that's efficiency." |
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| Rotomats ease pressure in other departments. |
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| When manufacturing sensitive electronic
devices at a zero tolerance for defects, test fixtures become very important
items. ISC stores between 60 and 70 test fixtures in this Rotomat. The carousel
provides easy access and a clean, limited dust environment for the instruments. |
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| The forth machine supports the work
cell for manufacturing the stationary, non-portable gas detector products.
And the fifth Hanel carousel is in the post assembly area, housing kitted
parts and providing general storage. |
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| The deciding factor. |
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| Industrial Scientific thoroughly analyzed
other storage systems before deciding on Hanel. In fact, ISC was not going
to purchase an automated storage system until they discovered Hanel. Hanel
Storage Systems was the only manufacturer to meet ISC's demand for storage
flexibility. When we asked Vince Schreiner what unique benefit influenced
the decision, he said, "In a word - adjustability. We didn't have to
permanently weld storage shelves. We could adapt the unit configuration
to our ongoing needs." This has proven to be a real benefit since4
of the 5 carousels have been adjusted for various reasons. |
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Ask for the
Hanel storage story
on CD-ROM. |
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