Automotion

Source: Manufacturing Digital

Date :16/09/2007 08:49:05

Automotion has grown and thrived in its market through state-of-the-art automation and solid distribution partnerships.

Written by Hailey Lynne McKeefry & Produced by Patrick Harlow

Forty years ago, Automotion began its history as a distributor of conveyors and conveyor accessories. It quickly transformed itself into a manufacturer of those same products in order to better control its own processes and products.

Since then, the company has grown and prospered by adopting new world views about manufacturing automation, paired with a traditional focus on creating strong alliances with its distributors.

“What sets us apart from some of the others in our industry is our automated processes,” says Joe O’Connor, director of marketing at Automotion in Oak Lawn, Ill. “The communications between engineering and production are seamless. In addition, we are always striving to provide the very best in quality, value, and service through our distribution network”

The Automation equation

At its inception, Automotion did much of its design, planning and implementation manually.

“In the old days, the manager kept everything in his head, and the place wouldn’t run if he wasn’t here,” says John Polak, plant manager. “In those days, someone hand wrote the bill of materials, the work orders and the routings. Design drawings were stored in large books on the manufacturing floor that had to be searched manually.”

Approximately two decades ago, though, the company realized that automation — then in its earliest stages — promised to transform the way it did business.

“We are committed to keeping up with the latest technologies,” says O’Connor.

Automotion has invested in equipment to automate the entire manufacturing process of its conveyors, from concept to implementation. First, designs are created by engineers and translated into a three dimensional product with its modeling system.

“The system can virtually take apart and put together parts to make sure they mate up perfectly,” says Eric Bostrom, engineering manager. “When designing manually, it is difficult to have the spatial skills to ensure that everything lines up. When several products need to mate up together and work as one, it’s comforting to know that mistakes will be caught before the pieces are fabricated and reach the assembly department.”

Next, data about the respective parts is transferred to its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

“The ERP system builds the bill of materials based on the designs that the engineers give it,” says Polak. “The entire system is automated. Once the part is in the system, it automatically generates routing orders, work orders, packing slips, and invoices.”

When the engineers design a conveyor system, the ERP system becomes a critical component in ensuring that the manufacturing process runs smoothly.

“The engineer has a screen where he picks out the type of conveyor and other elements that he wants, and the ERP system explodes everything out to piece parts and generates work orders, and everything else we need to build the conveyor from scratch,” explains Polak.

Finally, during manufacturing, the design drawings are accessible from computers located on the manufacturing floor.

“The workers can pull up a drawing electronically, load it into the equipment, and begin fabricating the part,” says Polak. “The systems removes that layer of order entry, the time spent rekeying information and the errors introduced by the data entry process.”

The results of automation have been dramatic.

“The speed of information is now five to ten times faster, if not more,” says Polak. “Even better, we have eliminated all sorts of opportunities for errors. Anytime there is an error, it takes a lot of time to remake the part.”

In addition, Automotion is able to do more of its own parts manufacturing rather than outsourcing it.

“Some things that we couldn’t make before are items that we can now do internally,” said Polak. “The laser allows the engineers to burn any shape they can draw.”

“The automated process allows us to provide minimal lead times and to jump quickly in a competitive situation,” says John Hejmanowski, vice president distributor sales. “Meanwhile, if the conveyor breaks down, we can still be quick to react and help the customer’s needs.”

Making new friends

Although automation is a key component to its success, Automotion credits its strong ties with its distributors as another key to its successful business model. Today, the company has a nationwide network of approximately 60 distributors that brings its products to customers in the United States, Canada and Mexico and even as far as the Pacific Rim and the United Kingdom.

“Growing and developing Automotion’s distributor network is critical to our success as a conveyor manufacturer,” says Merle Davis, president of Automotion. “We’re very fortunate to be able to work with such a talented group of distributors.”

The company has worked to keep their distributor ranks a fairly elite group.

“We sell to many people, but we don’t call them a distributor unless we really have a relationship with them,” says Hejmanowski. “Although there are situations where we are required to sell some products direct, we try to pass the business on to our distributors whenever we can.”

The manufacturer works hard to distinguish itself with its distributor partners by helping them establish themselves with customers.

“We are working to build a relationship with them, and they are building it with the end user,” says Hejmanowski. “If they are successful, we’ll be successful.”

For example, in the place on the conveyor system where many manufacturers slap a sticker with their own corporate name and logo, Automotion offers its partners the option of putting their own identifier.

“We’ve gone ahead and moved our name out of things completely,” says Hejmanowski. “We have redrawn the logos of our distributors in full color, so they have the ability to represent themselves and their contact information on the equipment.”

Automotion’s automated manufacturing system gives its distributors more flexibility.

“They are able to go online to a Web-based system and reserve manufacturing,” says Polak. “If they are going to go in and discuss an opportunity with an end user, they need to be able to make a commitment on behalf of Automotion. By reserving manufacturing time, they essentially shorten lead times by as much as 50 percent, which gives them — and us — a more competitive edge.”

Training and education further cement the bond between Automotion and its distributors.

“We want to make it easy for our distributors to do business with us,” explains Hejmanowski.

“We provide our distributors with AutoDesign, and AutoEstimator, automated drawing and pricing software. We are currently developing our 3rd generation AutoEstimator pricing software. Once completed, this web based software will not only simplify the quoting process, it will also directly interface with our CTO (configure to order) process providing yet another avenue to eliminate re-keying data and opportunities for errors.”

The company hosts an intensive four-day seminar to give its distributor a broad and detailed view of the company, and its processes and products, as well as a three-day class specifically about sortation conveyors.

“The seminar only costs them airfare,” says Hejmanowski. “We put them up, feed them, entertain them and educate them so that they are prepared to represent us in the field.”

Finally, Automotion works closely with its distributors to build their reputation, from helping them do public relations to bring attention to a customer success story, to helping them with marketing, including direct mail and e-mail campaigns.

In all, this combination of a willingness to adopt state-of-the-art automation and reap the benefits of speed and accuracy, combined with a total focus on choosing and supporting the best possible distributor partners, has enabled Automotion to build its reputation as a leading conveyor manufacturer.