Robotics: The Future is Now

Lean manufacturing is about constantly striving to do more with less. This is particularly important to  packaging companies like Kelly Box and Packaging where the material and operating costs are continuously rising. But lean manufacturing presents its own challenges in a company that runs 36,000 different parts in any given year, where the corporate culture is one of service the customer in whatever way necessary, including assembly, setup, component aggregation and many other services. "In many ways we are just a big job shop," says Joe Kelly, VP of manufacturing for Kelly Box, "but we also have a commitment to lean principles, and we strive to build in efficiency everywhere we can."  

For some the goal of lean manufacturing is means to realize the highest productivity possible while virtually eliminating waste. Others focus on minimizing human capital and optimizing process motion and flow. At Kelly Box they focus on a variety of different tools, but one way to cut to the chase is investing in technology. For some time now industrial robots have been a natural component of lean manufacturing. Robots offer the ultimate in repeatability. But newer robots also have the flexibility to improve the performance of a company like Kelly Box where they do more than 1200 machine setups in a month. The strength of a modern robot is the inherent ability to change, adding a valuable dimension of flexibility to the production process. Rather than running repetitively day after day, they provide precisely repeated motion within a specific production cycle, with the ability to achieve the precise repetition of a completely different motion for the next production cycle.

Kelly Box has found a place for robotics in its very challenging manufacturing environment where the ability to be flexible to an ever changing range of customer needs is central to the company's mission.

Check out the link below to see the Kelly Box Robot in action. http://www.kellybox.com/autofeeder.html