Alvey Robotic Palletizers from Intelligrated Paint a Picture of Efficiency for Kelly-Moore Paint Company

Willingness to Invest in Future Yields Big Dividends With 76% Return on Investment in First Year.

The Company

Beginning in 1946 with a single manufacturing facility in San Carlos, California, Kelly-Moore Paints™ has grown to the largest employee-owned, and the 5th largest paint company, in the United States. Supporting over 165 local stores, Kelly-Moore is “the painter’s paint store,” providing high-quality paint and related products to contractors, commercial and maintenance accounts, and do-it-yourself consumers. Today, the company maintains two facilities - in California and Texas - manufacturing and distributing nearly 15 million gallons of paint per year. State-ofthe- art on-site laboratories ensure quality control and produce some of the most technologically advanced paint products available, including their eCoat Recycled and Zero-VOC Enviro Coat and Green Coat lines.

The Challenge

When Plant Manager Keith Hussinger joined Kelly- Moore at their San Carlos, California headquarters four years ago, one thing was clear; Kelly-Moore’s manufacturing process had not kept pace with the advances in the company’s product lines.

As an employee-owned company, Kelly-Moore has a strong focus on the safety and ergonomic issues concerning their employees; however, hand palletizing of products weighing up to 70 pounds and production flow inefficiencies pointed to some obvious areas needing improvement. Even with a vacuum assist, the manual lifting was an issue of worker comfort as well as production efficiency.

The building selected to receive upgrades would soon begin production of Kelly-Moore’s most advanced – and most technically difficult – product lines. These lines typically have smaller runs with a higher SKU change rate, demanding flexibility in both the production and the handling of product. At this point, the Kelly-Moore team, led by Hussinger, actively set out to find a material handling partner who could meet the company’s needs.

Finding a Palletizing Solution Partner

Visiting the FKI Logistex® (now Intelligrated®) booth  at PACK EXPO in 2008, Hussinger was impressed with  the knowledge of the company’s end-of-line material  handling integration team as well as the capabilities  available, particularly the single-source responsibility  for system design, fabrication, installation,  commissioning and local customer support. Taking bids  from several integrators and independent palletizing  companies, Kelly-Moore chose Intelligrated and its line  of Alvey® robotic palletizers based on the company’s  reputation, 60 years of palletizing experience, breadth  of product and integration capabilities. “What  we found with Intelligrated was exactly what we  wanted: a complete, turnkey installation with the  experienced team to support it,” said Hussinger. “The  challenges that we knew we faced – and, maybe more  importantly, the ones we did not know about – were  pretty significant. We needed a partner that could  work with us to engineer a solution that fit our needs  in a scalable way.”

Intelligrated rose to the challenge. A design team,  with specialists in conventional, robotic and hybrid  palletizing manufacturing and integration, was  assigned to the Kelly-Moore project and led by  Intelligrated’s Director of Robotics Integration,  Bill Natsch. The Alvey robotic palletizing system  would be built, assembled and tested in St. Louis and  installed by Intelligrated’s local Los Angeles-based  technicians.

An Engineered Solution

With strict space limitations in the building, the  Intelligrated team set out to design the most compact  solution for the building’s manufacturing processes.  Building columns set in the middle of the room made  fitting the palletizing cells a tight squeeze with only  inches to spare. The system designers wanted to  ensure that Kelly-Moore would not have to make any  structural changes to the building to accommodate its  final design.

The Kelly-Moore manufacturing process revolves  around four lines: two lines handling smaller,  conventional gallon and quart paint cans; and the  other two handling larger, five gallon pails. It was  decided that two robotic arms would meet the  palletizing rates that Kelly-Moore required. In this  case, the Alvey robotic palletizing system used robotic  arms sourced from long-time partner Motoman. “It’s  the end-of-arm tooling and system controls that we  add that really customizes the solution to fit the need,”  explained Natsch.

Unwrapped trays of quart or gallon paint cans  presented an early challenge for the end-of-arm  tool designers. The solution demanded a tool that  could pick up configurations of 2x2 gallon and 3x3  quart paint can patterns, and their respective loose  cardboard trays. Intelligrated decided that the best  solution for this particular product was an end-ofarm  tool with an additional vacuum arm specifically  for the cardboard tray.Working with Tepro Machine  & Pac System and its line of Unigripper® lifting tools,  the final design lifts the cans and secures the tray  with a separate pivoting vacuum arm that descends as  product is moved to the pallet.

The five-gallon pails posed their own engineering  challenge. A two-inch diameter tinting port on each  lid that allowed customers to tint the paint in the  store could not withstand a vacuum. The solution  was end-of-arm tooling that would be designed and  manufactured by Intelligrated with a custom-designed  ring within the vacuum plenum to prevent the flow  of air from pulling out this port. The pails would  then be lifted three-at-a-time and palletized in a  nested configuration.

Key Benefits: Zero-Pressure  Accumulation and Line Changeovers  Without Delay or Retooling

Once the pails are filled and sealed, they are conveyed  via 15 feet of Accuglide™ zero-pressure accumulation  conveyor. Zero-pressure accumulation is critical with  a circular product, like paint cans or pails, where any  line pressure would be concentrated at the point of  contact between adjacent pails and product back  ups could create a jam or push the pails off of the  conveyor. The heavier five-gallon lines are equipped  with escapements to position the product in a precise  location to allow the robot to pick them up in groups  of three.

Based on Kelly-Moore’s original specifications,  the system design did not call for the Alvey robotic  palletizer to handle pallets. However, Intelligrated  determined that the robot could handle the  empty pallet placement at the build positions without  significantly impacting the speed of production. This  design change alone saved Kelly-Moore $25,000.

Both robotic arms repeatedly pick and place cans  or pails from the infeed conveyors and stack them  sequentially on the waiting pallets. Multiple layers  are built on the pallet until the pallet load is  complete. Once a pallet is complete, it is conveyed on  Intelligrated chain driven live roller pallet conveyor  to a new Lantech® stretch wrapper supplied by

Intelligrated. “Before, we were securing our pail  pallets with rope,” said Hussinger. “The wrapper is a  much more forward-thinking piece of equipment, and  speaks to the wide range of integration technologies  Intelligrated can bring to the table.”

As with all robotic projects, Intelligrated completed  a factory acceptance test (FAT) for the Kelly-  Moore project at its St. Louis, MO engineering and  manufacturing facility. During the FAT, all robotic  functions, including pallet handling and product  palletizing for both the trays and pails, were  completed. Project management, installation as well  as startup and commissioning services for the project  were executed by the Intelligrated western regional  office based in Sacramento, CA.

Key to this system was the ability of the Alvey robotic  palletizer to accommodate quick line changeovers. This  flexibility proved invaluable shortly after installation,  when a large Kelly-Moore customer requested a  custom run of three-gallon pails. Although they had  the same footprint as the five-gallon product, the  new pails were several inches shorter. Intelligrated  handled the request with a straightforward pattern  addition, avoiding the typical retooling required for a  conventional end-of-line installation.

Results: 76% Return on Investment in First Year and 80% Reduction in Changeover Time

The system was installed and delivered on time and on budget during Kelly-Moore’s off-peak season in January and February 2009. Over the next year, the improved San Carlos facility experienced impressive results.

“In only one year, we have had an incredible 76 percent ROI in our labor time,” said Hussinger. “We were able to cut out almost all overtime, but still fill our orders. Without a doubt, this project has exceeded our expectations in both efficiency and numbers. Additionally, our main goal of increasing worker comfort and safety was met, as the number of our lost-time accidents decreased rapidly, from 23 in 2005 to five in 2009.”

The automated end-of-line system has enabled the line to run at an even pace throughout the day, as the breaks required by heavy lifting from the old manual palletizing system were eliminated. Line changeovers, which took 45 minutes of downtime with the old system, today take only nine minutes. This represents an 80 percent reduction in line changeover time.

“The transformation has been incredible. What was the most outdated of our buildings has quickly become our state-of-the-art gem,” said Hussinger. “This is the building that we showcase to our clients. The Alvey robotic system lends a forward-looking element that we believe reflects our vision of where we are going with our product lines – clean, efficient and technically advanced.”

About Intelligrated

Intelligrated is a leading North American-owned, single-point provider of automated material handling solutions with operations in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Headquartered in Cincinnati, Intelligrated designs, manufactures and installs complete material handling automation solutions, including IntelliSort® line sortation systems, Crisplant® tilt-tray and cross-belt sortation systems, conveyor systems, Alvey® palletizers and robotics, Real Time Solutions® order fulfillment systems, warehouse control software and advanced machine controls—all supported by 24x7 Customer Service and Support. Serving the warehousing, distribution, consumer product manufacturing, postal and parcel markets, Intelligrated collaborates closely with its clients to develop productivity solutions and responds to their needs throughout the life of their material handling systems.

Intelligrated Support

The in-house Customer Service and Support (CSS) program offered by Intelligrated backs all of our products. Services available include:

• IN-24X7® technical support
• Replacement parts logistics
• Field service
• Equipment and system audits
• Upgrades and modifications
• Full service and maintenance contracts
• Preventive maintenance
• Customer training and documentation

CSS is available 24x7 to provide all of the services needed to keep your equipment running at peak efficiency. Whether it’s on-site support or troubleshooting via our hotline, Intelligrated has the most comprehensive customer support program in the industry.

Service and Parts Hotline
Phone + 1 877.315.3400
www.ontimeparts.com

Intelligrated Products and Services

• Systems Integration
• Sortation Systems
• Conveyor Systems
• Palletizing Solutions
• Software & Controls
• Order Fulfillment Systems
• 24x7 Technical Support
• Design & Build