A “Thousand Pieces an Hour” is a golden truss production metric and a lofty goal for many component plants. If one thousand is the magic number, even at 75% efficiency, in a 7-hour shift (7 hours x 1,000 pieces/hour, at 75%) that would be 5,250 pieces with potential to achieve 7,000 pieces. So, let’s use 750 pieces per hour as a production rate goal.
For a truss plant, pieces per hour is easily measured and/or extracted for every labor process and every machine utilized in truss production. For example, how many pieces of lumber can be picked in an hour? How many pieces are cut on a saw in an hour? How many pieces of lumber can be stacked behind a saw in an hour? How many trusses can be built on a jig in an hour?
Material handling, process organization, machinery, and the labor required can all be measured. I’m asked all the time how much production should be expected, or in other words what does it take to “Feed the Beast.” Fortunately, through videos/pictures and better yet by attending a plant tour, one can see how Enventek’s Process Organization Technology can achieve “A Thousand Pieces an Hour.”
How We Feed the Beast
Although I could go into great detail on all aspects of our process improvement, it’s always best to highlight these three. Individually or in combination, they will get you well on your way to the thousand pieces per hour goal. [For all photos, See PDF or View in Full Issue.]
Lumber intake: With a Lumber PickLine, if a board is dropped every 5 seconds into the chain-driven lumber trough, that would be a picking rate of 12 boards a minute (720 pieces an hour) for a total of 5,040 pieces in 7 hours. Organizing your lumber with a Lumber PickLine eliminates excessive forklift lumber picking and reduces operating costs significantly. And, picking lumber using our ingenious symmetrical batch mode makes the process essentially cut-by-truss when the autofill carts are positioned in sequence in front of the truss build tables.
Cutting: The amazing RetroC is a marvel to watch as the truss industry’s only auto-feeding component saw capable of cutting lumber at a rate of over 90 pieces per minute. Even with a 50 ft live deck, you will never be able to keep Feeding the Beast at this rate for long. Using the industry standard feed rate of 18 pieces per minute already yields more than one thousand pieces an hour. Having this much wiggle room is why the RetroC can be fed lumber collated for cut-by-truss to speed up truss production at the tables and also organize the cut lumber for left and right of table.
Material handling: The SpeedCatch sorting and optimizing algorithm is quite sophisticated, so that ultimately SpeedCatch improves truss build productivity by organizing the lumber in front of the tables with autofill lumber cart slots pre-sorted for left and right side of truss. What we call “symmetrical batch mode” is effectively cut-by-truss when the collated carts of lumber hit the tables. Because there are no human lumber catchers behind the RetroC, this is a two-person saw shop – all you need is one fulltime lumber picker on the Lumber PickLine and one fulltime sawyer.
Most factories intentionally aim to be below 100% utilization in order to perform routine maintenance. We like to see 75% utilization, which is relatively stress free for our installations as we utilize simple low-tech processes designed with robust high-tech automation. Low maintenance and dependability means proper cleaning and maintenance 25% of the time for any of the processes we provide, while still having confidence in being able to push to 100% when necessary.
When you’re ready to 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/#solution