Above: The honeycomb system features a large racking structure and highspeed cranes for safe movement of materials
November, 2024: Flexible, gig and remote are all adjectives that describe the modern world of work. Statistics from the U.S. Career Institute indicate that about two-thirds of employees say that remote work is the “most important” aspect of a job, “ranking even higher than salary, a flexible schedule and having a good work-life balance. Employee benefits like health insurance, paid time off and retirement ranked much lower on the list.”
Offering flexible work in many manufacturing roles can be a tough task and is one of the contributing factors to the challenges companies face when seeking qualified employees. According to The Manufacturing Institute, “If workforce challenges are not addressed, more than 1.9 million of the up to 3.8 million jobs likely to be needed between this year and 2033 could go unfilled.”
CREATIVE SOLUTIONS
“Hiring and retaining people has become more difficult, due to a low unemployment rate and the desire of many entry-level workers to change the way they work, having more opportunities to work in nontraditional ways, such as drivers for ride-share companies or working for an online retailer,” says Frank Ruggiero, vice president of operations at TW Metals, Exton, Pennsylvania. He points out that these changes, along with wage inflation, are likely to be long-term and structural in the labor market, “which is driving the need for greater automation of our processes.”
TW Metals recently added a custom honeycomb system, designed and built by warehouse logistics firm Fehr Warehouse Solutions Inc., to its Carol Stream, Illinois, facility to help solve some of these post-COVID challenges. Fehr’s honeycomb shelving systems have been in use globally for over 50 years.
The equipment “nearly triples the number of orders” that TW Metals can pull in one shift, compared to using cantilever racking, forklifts and sideloaders. “Taking what is essentially a 200,000-square-foot traditional warehousing operation and condensing it down to a 27,000-square-foot footprint by going vertical with the honeycomb system, we greatly reduce the time in motion of our products and increase the velocity at which we can fill orders,” Ruggiero says.
The goal, however, is not to reduce headcount but to provide additional capacity and speed to market needed for growth without adding more people. The company has operated in Carol Stream, about 33 miles west of downtown Chicago, for more than 50 years and currently has 115 team members.
The optimum use of space for storage, along with the reduced time in motion of materials, increased TW’s capacity to stock material and process orders.
LOOKING AHEAD
The honeycomb system handles long products (primarily stainless steel, aluminum and alloy steel pipes, tubes, bars and extrusions) and was built next to the existing Carol Stream facility “so we could take advantage of height to minimize its footprint,” says Ruggiero. “This created some challenges, particularly related to disruption of our current operations at a time when market rate of demand was very high. It was like the old analogy ‘changing the tires while driving.’ However, we recognized the opportunity to use this technology to improve our performance for many years to come, so we took it.”
The machine has two sides in contact with the existing building, which required modifying existing walls to allow material flow in and out of the machine and to and from processing areas.
“This was a big factor in how we ultimately decided to lay out our processing cells,” notes Ruggiero. The new setup also allowed the company to repurpose existing space for additional staging areas to load trucks and receive inbound materials.
“As our business continues to grow, we expect to utilize the additional space to increase our value-added processing capabilities as needed to support our customer base.”
The partnership between TW Metals and Fehr was crucial to ensuring the build went smoothly. “They worked closely with us, using their knowledge of our industry to determine an operational plan that we then executed,” says Ruggiero. “We went with Fehr because they are extremely responsive to our needs; they helped us in areas their competitors were not willing to.”
SAFETY AND SUPPORT
The honeycomb system facilitates better order accuracy by using scales to determine the weight of materials and storing the information in the warehouse management software. “The software provided by Fehr interacts with our internally developed MRP system so when something is removed from a location, it knows the weight that has been removed,” says Ruggiero. “This helps prevent costly errors and provides real-time perpetual inventory status.”
In addition to accuracy, safety was a big factor when choosing this technology. “The nature of automation is that it reduces human interaction with the product and the operating environment, which decreases the opportunities for injuries to occur,” notes Ruggiero. “The machine uses physical barriers, light curtains and sensors to prevent team members from being in positions where they could be injured by moving parts. These systems are built with safety in mind, and Fehr has the best safety record in their field.”
Often, implementing a large system requires major changes to how companies operate. Fehr assists customers with training and operations manuals, but Ruggiero stresses that the training is not a one-and-done exercise but a constant process. “We started by mapping our existing processes and then creating a future state process that became draft work instructions to be used for implementation and training. Fehr also offers ongoing technical support so that learning continues.”
The system handles stainless steel, aluminum and alloy steel pipes, tubes, bars and extrusions
As TW Metals gains experience working through problems, it is recording information to create a database of training for future team members, particularly those on the maintenance team.
“By making this significant investment in our Carol Stream operations, TW Metals is demonstrating our continual commitment to meeting the needs of our customers for many years to come,” says Ruggiero.
Fehr Warehouse Solutions Inc., 704/666-8448, http://fehr-usa.com/
TW Metals, 888/558-7818, http://twmetals.com/
