Features/Benefits Provided: Quick installation Flexibility with easy modification and repositioning Travels in all directions, and inside and outside Eliminates need for embedded steel rails

A builder of aircraft carriers and submarines needed to move extremely large steel plates from a single plate conveyor to one of seven individual delivery stations. Plate sizes generally vary from a minimum of three-sixteenths of an inch to a two-inch thickness, and up to 14 feet in width by 50 feet in length. The largest of these plates can weigh nearly 20 tons.

Prior to 2004, the company used a roller conveyor system to carry primed plates from the plate prep building to a rail car they called a "collocator." The collocator, used embedded steel rails to carry individual plates to six different trimming stations.

As production increased and the need arose for reduced cost, the company decided to build an additional station for the line, but it would have to be situated in another facility. This would entail a 90-degree bend in the collocator path-not feasible unless an additional, adjacent perpendicular track line was installed.

The rail collocator was 30 years old. Parts for the rail car were difficult to find and maintenance costs were escalating causing the company to consider other material handling alternatives. After a beta testing period, the decision was made in 2004 to upgrade the technology with a new, laser-guided Automatic Guided Vehicle (AGV). The AGV did away with the embedded steel rails in the floor and could travel equally well in both directions, inside and outside the facility, and could travel sideways at any angle and also rotate at its center point.

The AGV operates automatically according to programmed instructions from the operator's pulpit. Safety features include a laser scanning system at each end of vehicle and photo-optics down the length of each side. The precision laser guidance system allows the unit to boast a plus or minus one-inch positioning stopping tolerance in operation.

After a year and a half in operation, the company’s project engineer says, "the uniqueness of this AGV is that it has both a powered roller deck on top to roll the plates off," he says, "plus the ability to straddle a stack of plates along the entire length of its drop-off route."

The unique advantages of the heavy-duty AGV were readily apparent: quick installation compared to a rail system, the capability to be easily modified or repositioned, and a less disruptive test-out period.

is a proud member of AGVS, a Product Section of the Material Handling Industry of America

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