Seattle Celebrates Independence Day
When the addition of a fourth press line at The Seattle Times made three new automatic-guided vehicles a necessity, staffers saw a "window of opportunity," as Electrical Systems Manager Dana Reed put it.
"Our previous AGV control system was basically a black box" placing limitations on everything from vehicle movement to diagnostics and reporting, Reed says. Instead of upgrading, "our management made the move to in-house control independence."
Designed and supplied by AGV Products Inc. of Charlotte, N.C., the new control system transports and tracks newsprint rolls, maintaining inventory of the location and load status of every roll in the system using barcode IDs. No easy feat, considering the Times' 12 AGVs deliver up to 250 rolls of newsprint--or 3,000 miles of the stuff--to as many as 40 press reel stands a day.
The database-driven system, powered by AGV Products' TRACE 2000 software, runs on Windows NT and includes SQL and Access database compatibility, graphical user displays and press-control system interfaces. It guides the 12 AGVs as they receive newsprint from the paper's 1,000-roll warehouse; store rolls in a 27-lane, 265-position buffer-storage laydown area; deliver them to press reel stands; and handle waste carts.
While the Times' previous system made in-house tweaks, diagnostics and fixes difficult if not impossible, now such operations can be conducted at the click of a mouse. "Now that we've switched to open database architecture, we have complete control to set operation parameters in the pressroom," says Steve Josué, applications engineer.
More significantly, the system offers increased flexibility for on-the-fly changes, including such features as radio modems, on-board vehicle controllers allowing off-wire maneuvers and a development and support system allowing for timely in-house modifications.
Using these features, staffers have increased vehicle speed and introduced P-turns--off-wire programmed maneuvers that reduce rotate times and speed egress from the laydown area--saving wear and tear on the AGVs and the pressroom floor.
Because the system writes information to an open database, "our system engineers can access data, analyze and prepare reports without having to get inside the AGV system, or go back to the supplier for assistance," Reed says. The open architecture also simplifies adding new applications, including a warehouse inventory-control program the Times is now evaluating.
The system upgrade "offered little if any capital cost/price benefit," Reed admits. "But the enormous benefit to our operation was that we garnered complete flexibility to control pressroom inventory and operations."