Vending machines dispense factory tools, parts
Atlanta Business Chronicle - by Michael Weiss
Thanks to software from Marietta-based WinWare Inc., machinists and mechanics are finding that batteries are no longer included.
WinWare is the developer of the CribMaster Inventory Management System, a program that allows machine shops and manufacturing plants to keep close track of the tools, screws, nails and batteries that their employees use. Combining inventory tracking software with radio bar code scanners and company-built tool vending machines, the software is designed to help tool shops do everything from keeping supplies in stock to maintaining proper calibrations on gauges to preventing workers from walking out the door with drill bits or nine-volt batteries in their pockets.
"It's an age-old problem in manufacturing," said Robert Holmes, WinWare's marketing director. "There are always tools that are lost on the shop floor or are carried off."
In the six years since it's been developed, the software has caught on with some of the largest shops in the United States, with clients such as General Motors Corp., DaimlerChrysler AG, NASA, Honda Motor Co. and The Boeing Co. already on board. Some clients have plants large enough to assemble an airplane, but one client in Texas has only 18 workers in the shop, said company President Larry Harper.
Bar code ID
CribMaster, so-called because most shops distribute tools on the shop floor from a locked cage known as the tool crib, was developed in part to cut down on that loss. Each worker on the floor is given a card with a bar code that she must swipe before receiving tools from the crib. That swipe not only allows the company to keep track of who has what tool, but it also can limit people with certain levels of clearance to receive certain tools, and permits companies to charge tools to specific jobs.
At the Boeing plant in Mesa, Ariz., for instance, CribMaster has allowed officials to determine the actual tool costs for each project, said Clay Lonie, tooling coordinator at the plant, where workers put together Apache helicopters. Each employee holds a company identification card and a work order to the bar code scanner when picking up tools, so the item is immediately assigned not only to the proper worker, but to the right job.
That information also can tell the company how long a particular person is taking to do a certain job, such as fixing a specific machine, by measuring the time the employee keeps the tool before returning it. And it can make it easier to know when to reorder expendable items like drill bits, screws, nuts, bolts and batteries, as well as determine if someone is taking more than his share, perhaps for personal use.
Holiday battery ebb
"It's interesting," Holmes said. "We found in the fourth quarter, people all of a sudden needed a lot more batteries than they had needed all year long. It's because it was Christmas, and they were buying toys for the kiddies."
Some items turned out to be needed so frequently that WinWare also builds vending machines to distribute tools.
They use the same bar code system, though, so a worker who needs more quarter-inch bolts can swipe the card for them without having to go all the way to the crib. That can be especially useful on spacious plant floors.
In fact, Boeing's Mesa plant originally hooked up with WinWare in 1997, when managers wanted to install tool vending machines. Boeing officials wanted tool dispensers for the floor, hoping to save time by bringing the machines closer to the workers and moving them when the configuration of the shop changed for new products, Lonie said.
The vending machines are not a substitute for a live person in the crib, but they can be programmed not to give out too much of one item to a particular worker.
WinWare used to be a retail software outfit until the company hooked up with a manufacturer in Dallas that was trying to come up with tool vending machines. Now, though, the company does nothing but design systems for large manufacturing plants. Once officials realized that the market was untapped, they started devoting all their energies to filling it, Harper said.
"It's all we do now," he said. "It's a niche market, but it's a large one."
Michael Weiss is a contributing writer for Atlanta Business Chronicle. Reach him at atlantatechbiz@bizjournals.com.
Latest News |
Most Viewed Stories |
Most Emailed Stories |
