Assembly in Action: Flexible Plant Makes Flexible Furniture
To have as much manufacturing flexibility in its plants as it offers in its furniture, the company is shifting to an open-source Linux operating system and wireless manufacturing. Although the transition to wireless has given the company more control over its production process, the real impact has been in shortened lead Arial and reduced operating costs.
Malcolm Fields, Ph.D., Hon’s chief information officer, says that when the company decided to make the shop floor more flexible, the first step was upgrading the bar code equipment. Hon is rolling out the 5055 stationary, wireless and touch screen PC from Intermec Technologies Corp. (Everett,WA) for pack-out and quality verification functions in 18 of the company’s locations throughout the United States and Mexico. The implementation also includes ScanPlus 1800 Vista wireless handheld bar code scanners to replace tethered bar code wands, 4400 bar code printers and label media.