As teased in last month’s article, “F1 Pit Stop Each Truss,” the Enventek Collated Plate Dispenser was unveiled at BCMC 2024 Milwaukee. To many truss fabricators, it was an “A-Ha moment” to see a machine in action that solved a truss fabrication bottleneck that many did not even realize they had! [For all photos, See PDF or View in Full Issue.]
We’ve been assembling trusses for decades and many SKUs of truss plates are being gathered and distributed to truss build tables without any real consequence. From over 100 different sizes and grades of truss plates available, most truss plants “80/20” their inventory to about 32 to 48 truss plate SKUs. The time and effort of getting truss plates to the truss build tables has just been a cost of doing business. In many instances, the truss builders would fetch their own truss plates, until of course table automation accentuated how truss plates could be a bottleneck on truss build times. As such, the majority of truss plants now attempt to keep up with their tables by having dedicated plate pickers pre-pick the plates for the tables so that the truss builders can concentrate on building trusses. Even so, most of the pre-picking has been “bulk plate picking,” which leaves a lot of room for improvement as the truss builders still have to huddle and pick through the pre-picked bulk plates. Too bad the plate picker has not been able to organize the truss plates in order of distribution around the truss…
But now, A-Ha! Enventek has a machine that will semi-automatically fill plastic bins with collated truss plates in horizontal layers of tooth-to-tooth pairs of truss plates. The plate dispenser operator simply has to remove filled bins, and re-fill plate hoppers with tooth-to-tooth pairs of truss plates as alerted to by the overhead screens. The machine counts the plates and distributes the collated plates in horizontal layers into the bins, and prints out bin labels. An additional label is also printed of the “non-stocked” truss plates (if required) that need to be manually fetched to complete the order. Additional SKUs can be added to the machine in multiples of 16 SKUs.
Best of all, it has already been tested in the real world by a handful of Enventek PlantOne users who have been using the Enventek Collated Plate Picking feature of PlantOne to enable their dedicated plate pickers to pick collated truss plates. Their successes have been featured in my previous articles, including “Enhancing Truss Build Efficiency” and “How to Squeeze Out More Truss Production.”
The Enventek Collated Plate Dispenser can be a game-changer for any component plant. It’s certain to ramp up your plant efficiency and optimize your truss production, especially when combined with our other automation solutions!
When you’re ready to Feed Your Beast and see our efficient and effective systems for yourself, let us know. Inside and out, LimTek Process Organization Technology will help you squeeze out more truss production and deliver quality trusses with shorter lead times to better service your customers by organizing your truss fabrication processes to maximize your investment in automation. https://limteksolutions.com/#solutions