Tugs free up labour on floo
August 1st 2010 Following the purchase of two
pedestrian operated tugs, a
manufacturer of road sweepers has
reduced manufacturing waiting
times across two of its
UK factories.
The move
has also
improved
production flows and
labour efficiencies, as
well as eliminating the
risk of accidents and
injuries to employees. The
tugs are said to have played
a key role in supporting
the introduction of new
Lean Manufacturing
and Continuous
Improvement
principles across the
two manufacturing
plants.
Johnston Sweepers, a
manufacturer of outdoor surface
cleansing equipment, invested in two
MasterMover MT5 tugs to move a
special purpose trolley.
Tim Royle, production services
co-ordinator at Dorking says: "The
factory is relatively small and space is
tight. Part of the manufacturing
process here is to fettle the sweeper
body and then apply bitumen to the
water tank, which is situated on the
underside of the sweeper body. To do
this, we designed a special purpose
trolley that sits on castor wheels. This
enables a complete sweeper body to
sit in a cradle arrangement. The
body weighs in excess of one tonne,
but the trolley-cradle system allows
us to move the body between
processes and to fettle and bitumen
the body before it is
painted."
Prior to
buying the
tugs, between
two and four
people were
required to
move the
trolley. This
meant one
person would
have to
interrupt other people from doing
their job in order to help move the
trolley.
The MT5 can pull, push and steer
wheeled loads up to 4,000kg. More articles from MasterMover Ltd: | 
