You may have dedicated workers that are stacking pallets at a good speed, but however dedicated they are there is nearly always production time lost on the following:
- moving pallets out to the storage area
- wrapping pallets
- completing paperwork
- taking breaks for lunch or to visit the bathroom
- stopping to have the odd quick chat, to the boss on his daily walk round, or to other colleagues
- operators palletising slower than the production line can actually run working a little bit slower than the production line can actually run at full throttle
This may not sound much time, but when you add it up it is a lot more than most realise.
The hidden winner is this: simply installing a palletiser typically increases production throughput of the whole production line to at least 140%!
An automated palletiser system does not stop and always goes full speed, especially if you have automatic pallet feeding and an output buffer area for finished pallets. Granta have completed many palletiser installs and nearly all of these have improved production throughput by at least this amount, and often significantly more. Every time customers are surprised to find how much difference this hidden winner actually makes!
Many or even most companies justify automated palletisers on labour savings alone, but they are usually surprised by the hidden winner that brings significantly more benefit.
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