Kinnarps' AGV system is one of the largest in Europe

There is over 100,000 square metres of floor space at the Kinnarps office furniture factory in Kinnarp, Sweden. The factory's 40 automatic trucks carry out 2,500 transports per day following a track system that measures over 10 kilometres. This is one of largest European plants, by area, that uses Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVs). The traffic control system is provided by Moving/ProCode.

Office furniture producer, Kinnarps Kontorsmöbler, has a workforce of 860 in Kinnarp. The company holds more than half of the Swedish furniture market for offices and public environments. Its AGV system is a prerequisite for organising the materials and flow at the Kinnarp factory.

"Previously all the materials stood on the floor, and we couldn't carry on like that," explains Rolf Andersson, foreman of the maintenance department in Kinnarp and responsible for the running of the AGV system. "Not only did it require large areas of the factory, it also meant we had no real control over what we had in stock. That's why we built a high storage warehouse and introduced a system using automatic trucks."

"The AGV system is quite simply a necessary condition for today's modern production," he adds. "With manual trucks, we would also have needed a further 20-25 men employed to operate the trucks.

A new traffic system
At the start of the 1990s Kinnarps had two separate AGV systems with a total of 10 trucks. However, the installed traffic control system of that time could not be expanded into a total system for the entire factory. For that reason a new traffic system was ordered and went into operation in 1991.

The automatic trucks from AGV Electronics are a fork-lift type with a lifting height of 3.3 metres.

"Kinnarps is one of the companies that has committed itself fully to an AGV system," says Urban Larsson at ProCode, which developed the ATC (AGV Traffic Control) system. "It was here that our traffic control system for automatic trucks started. We had an idea about how one could modify the system that controlled Kinnarps' trucks and make it easy to expand."

A growing system
The system has grown through gradual expansion. The track plan today covers 7,000 collection/delivery points - conveyors, pallet racks and floor stations - in an area of about 90,000 square metres. Last summer a further 10 trucks went into operation. Today's system comprises of 40 trucks divided into two communication groups. They are controlled by event-controlled radio communication via a protocol that has also been developed by ProCode.

The system is integrated into existing networks with connections to the company's computers and control of two automatic warehouses and the PLC system.

Order optimisation was improved in 1992-93, and the radio communication program was modified. The trucks can now be grouped in several parallel channels. In addition, the viewing system PC View was installed. In 1997-98, ProCode transferred the whole system, including inventory management, from OS/2 to Windows NT and SQL Server.

"System reliability is excellent," states Rolf Andersson. "The few times the system has gone down, the trucks all stopped. But, we have always quickly got it going again."

Expand the layout yourself
Since the traffic control system was installed, Kinnarps' own staff has expanded the layout to cover the entire factory. It now covers an area 10 times larger than the first phase. The expansion has resulted in everything from laying new tracks and stations to drawing up schedules and driving routes.

"We have very good cooperation with ProCode, "says Rolf Andersson at Kinnarps. The system is easy to understand and expand. This is good because it means we can do it ourselves, when we want to and when we need to - and we can get it exactly how we want it."

Kinnarps' AGV plant: How it works
"The AGV system gives us order and efficiency," says Rolf Andersson foreman of the maintenance division in Kinnarp. "It gives us full control over everything in stock, both materials and finished products. In this way production - and our customers - are guaranteed deliveries at the right time. And the floor space of the factory can be optimised."

The AGV system handles all transportation within the Kinnarp furniture factory. This primarily means that:

• Furniture components are transported from woodwork manufacturing, varnishing or purchasing into intermediate storage with four stacking cranes
• The furniture components are transported from this store to the assembly departments.
• Assembled furniture is transported from the assembly departments to another automatic warehouse with four stacking cranes (or direct to the goods out bays).
• Buffered furniture is collected from the stores and transported to the goods out bays where the lorries are loaded.

Each transport is ordered by production staff using a barcode system. The automatic trucks collect and deliver in the same way as manual fork-lift trucks, i.e. on the floor, on roller conveyors or in pallet racks.