Design, Iterations and Integration: Planning for the Future
Article from MHI Solutions Magazine
It was the greatest compliment I’ve ever received.
Our team was giving a tour to a group of customers when someone noticed that the material handling equipment went in and out through different buildings. They asked whether the building and equipment had been built and installed at the same time since it appeared very integrated. In reality, it happened over 15 years, built upon a foundation of hard lessons learned.
At the start of my career as an industrial engineer, I was involved in designing facility layouts. Over time, I advanced to chief supply chain officer. As I took on all the operations, I was able to see how the decisions we had made, years prior, affected repairs and maintenance, flexibility for new product lines and integration with new kinds of automation. There was one moment where, as our business grew, we needed more speed out of a certain portion of the conveyor. We had made a choice many years previously to purchase a slower type of sorter because we couldn’t imagine that we’d ever need more speed in that area, given our 10‑year growth plan…
