Mark Stevenson of Egemin Discusses AGVs in Food and Beverage Journal

June 9, 2011 - PRLog -- Mark Stevenson is Vice President of Business Development for Egemin Automation, Inc., a global provider of Automatic Guided Vehicle Systems, Material Handling and Automation solutions. For twenty years, Stevenson has worked with many of the world's largest corporations on the design and implementation of automatic guided vehicle systems, including two of the first automatic trailer loading system in the United States, and he holds a patent as a co-inventor of ATL technology. Stevenson is recognized as one of the foremost authorities and subject matter experts on the design and application of automated trailer loading systems and warehousing automation with automatic guided vehicles.

In the current issue of The Food and Beverage Journal, manufacturing journalist TR Cutler noted, “Increasing profits with AGV automation is best achieved by reducing costs related to supply-chain management. Exploring methods of optimizing transportation of raw materials, work in progress, finished goods and flow of return goods drives bottom-line results. Production issues, particularly workflow, can improve operational efficiency and employee productivity.”

Integration of equipment and processes along with operational complexity and dealing with best practices also generate economic impacts for cost-justification of the AGV automation expense.

Stevenson recently commented during ProMat 2011 that, “All guided vehicle solutions must be cost-efficient and made-to-measure. They must be fully automatic transport systems using unmanned vehicles. These industrial vehicles safely transport all kinds of products without human intervention within production, warehouse, distribution and shipping environments: the clear way to increase efficiency and profitability.”

These systems consist of reliable off-the-shelf components. However, Stevenson notes, “We always tailor our vehicles to meet client requirements to lift, rotate, and shift goods, fetch loads from racks, store products in deep lanes, transport product across long distances, deliver them onto conveyors.”

He went on to say, “Compared to other automatic transport systems, our system is not bound to the floor, which allows better use of the available working space. In addition, extensions or even relocations of the entire system can be easily achieved; systems also integrate with higher-level ERP and can be easily combined with other material handling systems like conveyors, stacker cranes and palletizing or packing machines.”

Companies in the food, beverage, plastics, consumer goods and big box retail distribution markets purchase Egemin Hybrid Automated Guided Vehicles for flexibility, familiarity, reliability, and affordability.  Combined with Egemin’s Warehouse Management System (E’wms), organizations realize better than expected returns on investment.

Egemin Automation Inc. (http://www.egeminusa.com) is the leading manufacturer of AGVs and Warehouse Management Systems since 1976. Egemin is a worldwide organization operating on six continents. Egemin’s Center for AGV Excellence is located in Holland, Michigan, where it employs all disciplines as the AGV industry leader. All AGV technologies including design, software, and support, are developed and owned by Egemin. Over 5,000 AGVs have been manufactured and installed; many are being used by Fortune 500 companies.

Egemin Automation
www.egeminusa.com
Dave Noble
Director of Marketing and Communications
PR@egeminusa.com
1-616-393-0101