What’s inside your home today, and what will be on top of your house in the future, was or will have been handled by Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs). These are the small under-riding robots that carry all sorts of items from point A to B in plants or warehouses, eliminating manual handling. Amazon, Kroger, and Porsche have scores of these work-savers in use today, transporting everything from books to bacon to bumpers. Kroger, for example, initiated use of AGVs in 2019 in their huge new customer fulfillment centers (CFCs) near Cleveland and Orlando, and have at least 18 more CFCs in process. So, if Kroger can afford to use AGVs to handle groceries, which is one of the least profitable products, why shouldn’t a component plant be able to use them to deliver truss parts, a much more profitable product? Fortunately, there is at least one proven company implementing their use. [For all images, See PDF or View in Full Issue.]
AGVs work well because they are always on the move and don’t otherwise take up space. They can deliver a cart with the next group of cut parts as soon as the preceding cart has been emptied. When they disengage from the newly delivered cart, they can engage the empty one and return it to receive another group of truss parts. AGVs can save 20% of the assembly floor space, enabling the truss lines that formerly required a 250’ wide building to fit into a 200’ wide building (see The Last Word: The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Big Truss Plants.)
The utility of AGVs is that they can be used in any existing component plant with little change in infrastructure, as long as floors are smooth and level. AGVs are designed to complement workers, and they avoid collisions by employing one of several available navigation guidance systems, which would have to be adapted to account for the cantilevering of lumber beyond the frame of the AGV. Carts would have to be designed to receive the AGV underneath their frame, to ensure that sticks of lumber don’t protrude beyond the sides of the cart. Carts with a cradle and/or sufficient uprights to contain cut parts and those that are elevated to near-table height are preferable.
The mechanical drive system of AGVs is technically advanced, as is the software that guides them. Integrating AGVs into a running plant would be a significant challenge, but, fortunately, Hundegger has already developed their TRUSSLinc® System around AGVs. They have employed technology similar to that used in the largest Mercedes plant in the world (which has 600 AGVs servicing its production line).
TRUSSLinc®’s operation is well described in this video filmed at Hundegger’s Demonstration Center on their large headquarters campus. Like Hundegger’s conveyor-based system, it is specifically designed to handle truss-by-truss fabrication (see The Last Word: Material Handling Bunk-to-Table). Key features are its ingeniously designed carts with a cradle built of flexible, fabric-like material that holds cut parts in a neat bundle.
Also a key feature of TRUSSLinc® is the sorting device that enables parts to be cut in the most lumber-saving sequence, and then separated and deposited into bins, truss by truss. When a given bin contains all necessary parts, the AGV drives beneath it, rises up, and carries it to the truss line.
Clearly, we are witnessing the most flexible, space-saving, material handling equipment on the market. Expect to see it soon in a plant near you.