MHW Magazine News and stories from the Materials Handling Industry
IVC has placed an order with Egemin for an automated warehouse solution for its manufacturing facility in Dalton, Georgia. The order consists of an integrated warehousing system with AGVs to handle the intermediate transport flows of slabs and rolls and storage of slabs.
IVC’s vinyl business is rapidly expanding worldwide. To support the expected growth, IVC continues investing in its manufacturing facilities. Egemin Automation recently delivered an integrated warehouse system for the Avelgem plant in Belgium. This system handles the transport and storage for luxury vinyl floors from production to the new warehouse and distribution hall. Due to the positive experiences gathered from this project, IVC US decided to embark on a similar project with Egemin in the US. Egemin will automate IVC US’s Dalton distribution center and convert part of the facility to manufacturing. The automation will enable IVC US to complete the production of LVT (Luxury Vinyl Tiles) in the USA.
Handling of slabs and rolls
IVC US’s order consists of an integrated warehousing and WIP transport system supporting the production and logistic processes at the Dalton plant. The system will handle the transport and storage of slabs (assembly of slab carrier and PVC plates) in between the production lines and the WIP buffer warehouse (Work in Process). The system also handles the transport of winded rolls and empty cores in between racking and the production lines.
Egemin’s scope of delivery includes two slab handling E’gv®s from the LTV series (Load Transfer Vehicle) and two side-lifting roll handling E’gv®s from the FLV series (Fork Lift Vehicle) to handle loads up to 14,000 lbs (6.4 MT) and 19,400 lbs (8 MT) per load, respectively, between various stages of production. A fully automated warehouse with one stacker crane and an inbound and outbound slab conveyor system with which the AGVs will interact will be installed as well. E’wcs will control all transport flows in the system and manages the warehouse. It will interface with IVC’s SAP-WM software. The system is scheduled to go live in Summer 2015.
