Ten miles may not seem far. But when you’re moving everything in a 73,000-square-foot warehouse, you might as well be moving across the country.
That was the challenge staring Delroy Ross in the face. As the director of warehouse operations at Barton International, moving the abrasive manufacturer’s processing equipment and machinery, as well as 40,000 tons of loose garnet, to the new facility fell on his shoulders.
That equipment included a PASCO® palletizer that would need a complete reconfiguration. So, he called our team in.
Because Pasco Systems Corp is both an OEM and an integrator, we guided Delroy through a redesign of their whole new warehouse, not just the palletizer. Then, we replaced a robotic bag placer manufactured by a competitor.
Together, these changes increased Barton International’s Cavalier warehouse’s processing production by 25%.
“We were doing about 80 pallets of this one product,” Delroy said. “Now we're doing 100 and truthfully, we're finishing with an hour left in the production day. We picked up 20 pallets in overall production by just changing the whole layout based on what they helped us see.”
Reconfiguring old equipment to fuel a new vision
A new layout and 17,000 additional square feet meant two processing lines needed full overhauls — installing new conveyors, knocking down walls, adding space for fork trucks and more. On top of that, Barton International also wanted to upgrade its automated material handling equipment.
So, our engineering team evaluated the warehouse and determined how the space should flow to improve processing efficiency. What we proposed wasn’t what Delroy had had in mind. It was better.
“It's always nice when you talk to someone who actually gives you a vision,” Delroy said. “Because it's just like with anything else, you think you know it or how you see it, but they'll help expand that and say, ‘Hey, there are possibilities of doing this. Have you looked at doing that?’ That's helped bring a lot more to the table.”
Other integrators won’t work with equipment they didn’t install. We will.
The end-of-line equipment involved in the move included a PASCO® palletizer and a bag placer made by another supplier. While the newer palletizer worked well, the bag placer had seen better days.
“Barton’s automated system to place [bags] had been manipulated so much over the years that it really looked like it was in shambles,” said Gabe Scherer, the senior application engineer at Pasco Systems Corp who managed Barton’s relocation project. “It worked, but it was a mess. Imagine, all the wires had been cut and then tied back together.”
Though it had been MacGyvered over the years, the bag placer still functioned and played an integral part in the filling system. Because of that, Barton couldn’t commit to a new one and a warehouse relocation at the same time. So, we disassembled the placer system, redesigned it to fit the new layout and engineered it to accommodate both Barton’s standard sized bags and supersacks.
Managing equipment upgrades across the line
As an abrasives manufacturer, Barton blends different ratios of garnet and other materials. To create these blends, three hoppers feed into mixing stations.
But the hoppers tapered to the side instead of dropping out the middle, and the beat-up ventilation hoods no longer worked as intended.
Though we don’t manufacture this equipment ourselves, we sourced new hoppers and installed a dust collection system to mitigate air contamination. This created a safer environment for Barton’s employees and took more vendor coordination off Delroy’s plate.
Training that maximizes the labor of a small team
Even after training Delroy’s team, the project finished three weeks early. And it went so well that we returned 18 months later to replace the old bag placer with a PASCO®.
“The support we've gotten from Pasco is unbelievable,” he said. “You can call them anytime and they pick up. Not only me as the director, they even walked my guys through it. None of my guys are engineers. Pasco trained them on site, and with their in-house training, we can handle the system.”
“We can handle the system” sells Delroy’s team short. They’ve improved the warehouse’s efficiency enough that he reshuffled his labor force.
“It actually helped us eliminate a position and a half,” he said. “It's weird, it's a position and a half, but now we don't have a person just sitting in a chair placing bags on the bagger … and the person overseeing the bagger can also do other things.”
In fact, the robotic bag placer runs so efficiently that they only operate it at 60-70% capacity. If they ran it at 100%, the front of the line would fall behind.
“I have no complaints,” Delroy said. “I'm on the phone half of the day, so if my team has issues, it would make my job that much harder. Having a reliable system, that's not just for me, it's for my team. Let's face it, if we had a system that always was having issues, it makes your operators really frustrated too. All around, the system has made our daily process a lot easier.”
Install an end-of-line automation system that you can trust
Up next with Barton? An international project.
“That's how good I feel about Pasco’s systems. We’re having them involved in this overseas project instead of an overseas vendor,” Delroy said. “I just feel really comfortable that they’re going to put in a reliable system. I know we're going to get the support we need.”
Let’s get your facility the support you need to increase your efficiency. Get in touch with our team today. We’ll design, manufacture, source and install exactly what you need.