int kelly moore_casestudy

CASE STUDY

KELLY-MOOREPAINT COMPANY

2www.intelligrated.com

Alvey Robotic Palletizers from Intelligrated Paint a Picture of Efficiency for Kelly-Moore Paint CompanyWillingness to Invest in Future Yields Big Dividends With 76% Return on Investment in First Year.

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.

The Challenge

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-of-

the-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.

Once the buckets are filled and sealed, they are conveyed via 15 feet of Accuglide™ zero-pressure accumulation conveyor.

The Company


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.

End-of-arm tooling from Intelligrated, lifting five-gallon pails in groups of three to the build station, contains a custom-designed ring within the vacuum plenum to prevent the flow of air from pulling out a tinting port.

Finding a Palletizing Solution Partner 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-of-

arm 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.


(from left to right) Project Manager Tim Lasko, Intelligrated; Maintenance Manager Brendan Ingraham, Kelly-Moore; Plant Manager Keith Hussinger, Kelly-Moore.

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.

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

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

Unwrapped trays of quart and gallon paint cans presented a challenge for the end-of-arm tooling. Working with Tepro, the final design lifts the cans and secures the tray with a separate pivoting vacuum arm that descends while product is moved to the pallet.

“The transformation has been incredible. What was the most outdated of our buildings has quickly become our state-of-the-art gem,” said Hussinger. Continues Ingraham: “while this was a “turnkey” installation, they didn’t just hand us those keys and walk away. They taught our employees to drive the system.”


Continuous Improvement, Improving the EarthKelly-Moore Paint’s San Carlos headquarters is a carbon-neutral, certified green business and recipient of the 2010 Large Green Business of the Year Award*. “Our products are engineered with a ‘continuous improvement’ mentality – and we have put that to work in the manufacturing process as well,” said Keith Hussinger, plant manager for Kelly-Moore Paints. “We knew that we had the corporate support to invigorate and update our manufacturing process.”

Leading 100,000 California companies, Kelly-Moore was selected by the Green Business Committee in 2009 for its series of recycling and improvement programs that diverted 80 percent of its waste and for its ability to motivate employees to commit to its recycling effort, a rare achievement for a company in the chemical-based paint industry. Kelly-Moore was also recognized for its carbon offset program resulting in the San Carlos plant being carbon neutral.

“Our employees can see the benefits of the Alvey robotic palletizer,” said Hussinger. “It makes them more willing to participate in some of our other initiatives; it proves that we’re not just talking about change. Winning awards like the “Large Green Business of the Year” is a result of our hard work, our willingness to invest in the future and our commitment to continuous improvement.”

* 2010 Large Green Business of the Year Award is hosted by the San Carlos Chamber of Commerce

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.”

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

Saving $25,000 - The original system design did not call for the Alvey robotic palletizer to handle the pallets. However, once the Intelligrated team looked at the rates that Kelly-Moore required, they determined that the robot could handle the empty pallet placement at the build position without significantly impacting the speed of production. This design change saved Kelly-Moore $25,000.


System Overview:

Intelligrated Alvey® robotic palletizing system

integrating Motoman EPL-160 robotic arms

Intelligrated Accuglide™ accumulation conveyor

Intelligrated pallet dispenser

Intelligrated chain driven live roller pallet conveyor

Intelligrated pallet transfers

Conveyors:

Intelligrated

Robotic Arms:

Motoman

Vacuum Tooling:

Intelligrated

Tepro Machine & Pac Systems

Pallet Dispenser:

Intelligrated

Stretch Wrapper:

Lantech®

Controls & Programming Software:

Intelligrated

System Design:

Intelligrated

System Integration:

Intelligrated

Kelly-Moore System Overview

Headquartered in San Carlos, CA, this carbon neutral manufacturing facility needed to keep pace with the advances in the company’s product lines. Hand palletizing of products weighing up to 70 pounds and production flow inefficiencies pointed to some obvious areas needing improvement.

• Systems Integration

• Sortation Systems

• Conveyor Systems

• Palletizing Solutions

• Software & Controls

• Order Fulfillment Systems

• 24x7 Technical Support

• Design & Build

Intelligrated Products and Services

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

KM01 5.10 © 2010 Intelligrated. All rights reserved. Alvey® is a Registered trademark of Intelligrated Inc.

7901 Innovation Way, Mason, Ohio 45040 + 1 [email protected] www.intelligrated.com

For more information, contact:

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.

Headquarters in Mason, Ohio