Any Job Shop Can Utilize Automation With A Little Planning

Automation does not always have to be extremely complex with multiple work stations to be productive for a business. There are a lot of small manufacturing shops around that could utilize automation to improve the bottom line of their businesses and make the productivity of their workers increase dramatically. Sometimes a shop owner gets the idea that when you mention the term "automation" in relation to their business you would also have to start thinking about millions of dollars to finance such an undertaking. This is simply not the case. Even the most simplistic approach to automation, especially in a job shop, can yield a speedy return on investment and make the lives of all the employees much more productive and enjoyable at a job shop. Most importantly it will allow the job shop to increase the amount of business that the shop can do in any period of time. It only takes a little planning and a little bit of diagramming to layout the beginnings of a very improved job shop facility.

Most shop owners are always looking for ways to increase the revenue that the job shop will produce in any given period of time. The thoughts that they have are along the lines of adding extra staff that will have to work on a second or third shift. This will mean an increase in benefit expenses, insurance, worker's compensation insurance, more supervisory staff, among other costs. These are perfectly valid ways to accomplish the goal of improving the bottom line by increasing the production rate. Another train of thought might be to build another job shop in another geographical location and clone the currently successful operation to grow the income. There are benefits that can be gained by creating other establishments, but that is a large capital outlay, and may not be as successful in the other location.

Usually a job shop owner will have a "feel" for the demand for the products that are produced in the shop, knowing what the nature of the demand is throughout the year. There may be seasonal times when demand is higher and slow times when demand is lower. The job shop probably has limited space in which products can be created, and needs to work withing this area. A typical job shop usually has a series of operations that are performed on products as they are completed in the shop.

For instance such a shop might be one that applies finishing coatings to wood products. In this imaginary job shop wood products move from one work area to another for coatings that lead up to the final finish. The work areas that perform operations on the products might be sanding, priming, drying, painting, and sealing. In order for the products to get from one work area to another, carts must be used to move the products. The employee working in the sanding area must get a cart and go to the dock where unfinished products arrive, load the cart with several products, and take them to the sanding work area. There the employee will work with another employee to unload and sand the products. After completing the operation the products must be loaded and moved to the next work station. This physical loading and unloading continues as the products go to priming, drying, painting and sealing. The production rate in this operation is limited by the physical speed of the employees moving products from one work station to another.

This wood finishing operation could have the entire production rate doubled or even tripled in the same space without adding staff. The solution lies in the installation of an overhead conveyer system for automating the movement of products from one work station to another. As raw products enter the facility they would be attached to the overhead conveyor. This product "mover" could be scaled so that as the product approaching any given work station would be hanging at an optimum height for work to be done at that location. With this type of system there would be no need for the carts that were used before, which would free up the area that they occupied on the shop floor. Employees would not be required to spend time getting carts, pushing them to another location, loading them with products, pushing them back to the work area, and unloading them. The employees would be able to remain in their assigned work area and spend the "pushing", "loading", and "unloading" time they spent before in doing productive work that contributes to the increase in the production rate. Utilizing this type of system it is easy to see that the production rate could be increased by a factor of 2 or even 3, with the addition of added staff.

Any job shop operation that has work stations to which products must be taken for steps of completion can greatly benefit from a conveyor system to move products at an optimum rate from station to station.