Raw materials are the largest cost component in pallet manufhcturing. The primary raw material used to produce pallet parts are pallet cants. Therefore, pallet cant quality directly impacts pallet part processing and material costs. By knowing the quality of the cants being processed, pallet manufacturers can predict these costs and improve manufacturing efficiency. The purpose of this study wa...

In multi-station assembly systems, common for mass-customization manufacturing strategies, the product being assembled is held in a fixture attached to a pallet, and the pallet is conveyed between workstations. In high-precision assembly systems, variation in the position of the pallet is one of the largest sources of variation within the error budget, reducing quality and yields. Conventional ...

Low back disorders in distribution centres or warehouses have been identified as an area of elevated risk in many industries. The task of an order selector requires workers manually to lift boxes from storage bins to a mobile pallet. This study explored the effect of box features and box location when lifting from a pallet in a storage bin upon spine loading. Ten experienced warehouse workers w...

Image processing techniques are widely used to detect defects in industrial equipment. In this paper, an online system is presented to detect bending in pallet cars of a travelling grate conveyor used in sintering machines. If bending in several pallet cars exceeds a specified limit, it can stop the production line. Therefore, an early and precise diagnosis is required. The system consists of a...

Flexible assembly systems use conveyors to transfer products through a series of workstations. The product being assembled is typically held in a fixture mounted on top of a pallet. Conventional approaches for locating the pallets often use precision ground pins and bushings for location. This technique requires clearance between the pin and bushings to accommodate manufacturing variation and p...