Innovating at Worcester
R2-D2 where are you?
On an average day in the Worcester factory, a line feeder operative walks a long 14 kilometres. Although an obvious health benefit to the individual, this doesn’t add much to the efficiencies of a factory. Dan Cotterill, supply chain engineering manager for the production logistics team at the Worcester plant and self-confessed smart technology enthusiast, is tasked with identifying efficiencies in the logistics operation for the Worcester Bosch business.
“We identified a requirement for a better solution to move full pallets from the end of the assembly line to the quality department and/or distribution centre for shipping. It was an opportunity to introduce robotics and automation to the factory whilst improving our efficiency at the same time.”
Dan and his team decided to install two automated guided vehicles (AGVs) to move the pallets. These battery powered AGVs can lift 500kg and move at a speed of 2 meters per second. They have a smart navigation system which utilises a forward facing camera and laser scanners. The AGVs continuously map the area around them and can plan new routes around an obstacle instead of waiting for the obstacle to move. Older technology of this type would have been dependent on a strip in the ground to determine the route but this wouldn’t have worked for the Worcester site.
“In a busy environment we needed a solution that could adapt and work with the day to day operations in a safe way and that ultimately would not hold up production if an obstruction was placed on the mapped route.” Dan worked with a team of 6 engineers and alongside the Production engineering team to customize the AGV to suit the Worcester environment.
Nick Fenton, manufacturing engineering manager explained “the team have programmed the software to give the AGVs the understanding of their environment and the ‘mission’ or route and to be able to interact with other technology such as sliding doors and the pallet docks. We also needed to programme them for a variety of scenarios such as in the event of an emergency - so the vehicles would move away from evacuation zones.”
Through software, the position and routes being taken by the AGVs on the factory floor can be tracked.
An engineer can then re-route or amend the instructions to the AGV live depending on the requirements for it that day. Each vehicle is battery powered and will take itself back to its docking station to recharge as necessary. The AGVs were installed in August and now run on two lines, transporting six boilers at a time across the factory every 12 minutes.
It was important as with any changes to the factory that associates were involved Nick explained. “We wanted to give the new bots a personality so we ran a competition to name them, and we had some great suggestions. In the end the winning names were C3PO and R2-D2 – which shows how many sci-fi fans we have at Worcester!”
After a successful trial, Dan expects the AGVs to run on all four lines in the new year. What’s next for the logistics innovation team?
“We are always looking for opportunities to innovate on the logistics process and moving towards Industry 4.0 operations where the factory is communicating across technologies. In 2020 we are particularly excited that we will be implementing a fully automated picking solution in our spares distribution area. This innovation will significantly improve the speed and efficiency at which we can satisfy customer orders and parts for our service engineers, in turn providing us the opportunity to offer new services to our customers in the future."
