Manufacturing Automation - Pin Feeding Carrier Assembly System

Advent Design’s client manufactures a variety of cordless handheld power tools. The transmission of their cordless drill required pressing 15 metal pins into three carriers. The operation was performed on 8 hydraulic presses and all components were manually fed into the tooling. The operation required a significant amount of labor and our customer requested an automated assembly system to automatically feed the pins and carriers and press them together. Advent Design evaluated the operation and determined that most of the labor was spent feeding pins and relatively little labor was expended feeding the carriers. The cost to develop a pin feeding system was significantly less and involved significantly less technical risk than developing a system that included automatic carrier feeding. Advent Design recommended building three pin-feeding systems each dedicated to a different style carrier. The approach had four major advantages 1) significantly lower capital investment 2) less risk 3) used less floor space and 4) enabled the client to produce all sub-components required for the next assembly operation simultaneously, eliminating WIP and supporting their Lean Manufacturing initiatives.

Advent built and installed three automated pin-feeding systems, each dedicated to one of three different style carriers. The result was labor saving automation that supported the client’s lean manufacturing initiatives as the automation could be integrated directly into the manufacturing cell. The client spent less than 1/3rd of the cost of a totally automated system and achieved 87% of the potential labor reduction, resulting in a project with a 5-month payback. When the client introduced the next generation cordless product they contracted to have an additional set of three machines built for the new product.