NEWS | BY KIVNON
Warehouse management system with 26 rotating AGVs equipped with lifting platforms
Faurecia, one of the world’s leading automotive technology companies, has set up an end-of-line buffer, sequencing, and warehouse facility in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, to supply car seats to an international automaker (OEM).
Seats are delivered in the correct sequence directly to the OEM's overhead conveyor. For the implementation of the Warehouse Management System, Faurecia has chosen the Kivnon AGV K05 Twister. This automated guided vehicle features 360-degree rotation on its axis and is specifically designed for confined spaces, as required by the plant in Vitoria.
“This Warehouse Management System that Kivnon built for Faurecia clearly demonstrates the direction in which the AGV market is heading. “In addition to the traditional tasks of an AGV—transporting materials from point A to point B—we are now seeing increased demand for highly intelligent technologies and route programming for our AGVs. In this way, we help customers take their internal logistics and warehouse management systems to the next level,” said Rob Keij, Sales Director at Kivnon.
Using a weightless handling system, workers transfer the car seat from the end of the line to the AGV. The AGV then delivers it to a loading robot, which, in sync with the sequence, picks it up and signals the AGV when it can return to its starting position to begin another cycle. Once the automated guided vehicle is released, the robot transfers it to the OEM’s overhead conveyor.
An automatic, secure, and reliable system that, thanks to in-loop battery charging stations, can operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In addition, Kivnon’s lifting platform is equipped with an RFID reader to identify seats and verify that they match the OEM’s specifications. In total, 26 AGVs and 200 carts are required for this process, which handles a very high volume of seats per day.
“This system has successfully automated the entire loading process and the sequencing of storage locations in the ground-floor warehouse, thereby streamlining the control system and enabling backup operations when necessary. All of this is achieved through a highly flexible system that allows for quick layout modifications. It also offers the ability to increase capacity very quickly and easily, such as by adding more AGVs to the flow,” says César Lafraya, Plant Director at Faurecia in Vitoria-Gasteiz.