Banner Graphic, Volume 15, Number 21, Greencastle, Putnam County, 27 September 1984 — Page 14

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"PROGRESSING WITH PRIDE" Industry in Greencastle keeps us growing ... and growing strong. Industry serves all of us in many different ways ... boosting our economy, creating employment and promoting business. Our prosperity and future greatly relies on the success of our local industry.

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IBM Greencastle Parts from local facility shipped around the world

Virtually every day, parts for IBM equipment leave Greencastle destined for all corners of America and most other countries throughout the world. IBM GREENCASTLE is one of two Field Service Support Centers for the company’s Field Engineering Division. It is the nerve center of a vast, efficient parts distribution system. International Business Machines and the Greencastle community have been “together for 30 years,” a theme celebrated this year as IBM marked its 30th anniversary in the community with a special open house for the public. Just six years ago, IBM unveiled plans for a 130,000-square-foot addition to its Greencastle site, a decision that reflected an ongoing change of mission here. Since 1954, the facility has evolved from a center for modifying and reconditioning electric accounting machines through the production and shipment of data processing cards to its present mission as a materials distribution center. THE GREENCASTLE facility includes an automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) building 230 feet long and 110 feet wide, containing 9,000 separate storage locations, and a materials distribution center designed to house more than 60,000 different maintenance parts within 90,000 square feet of floor space. The main objective is to sustain a high parts availability rate while managing inventory and distribution costs within the system. Parts stocked encompass everything from the largest copier cover to the tiniest screw for a typewriter. Thousands of orders are handled every day, using the most advanced storage and retrieval methods available. System features at IBM Greencastle include microprocessor-controlled cranes managed by IBM Series I computers,

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trucks steered by cables beneath the floor and automated conveyors with photoelectric readers and laser-beam scanners. IN 1984, THE FACILITY was further mechanized through the addition of an automated sorter. Here, parts orders are automatically sorted for shipment to a specific location with the use of a sophisticated sorter and a Personal Computer interacting with a host computer. While computerized technology does the walking, lifting and carrying, skilled people are at the heart of the Greencastle facility and make the center operate with a high degree of efficiency. Parts flow into Greencastle in a seemingly endless stream from IBM manufacturing plants in other states. After verification by number and quantity, parts are placed on tote trays or pallets and sent to various storage areas. Once a tote tray or pallet is consigned to IBM Greencastle’s conveyor system, it fin-

ds its own way to a storage area. More than a mile long, the small-parts conveyor includes incoming and outgoing loops where trays can circle until called down by the system. Photoelectric readers read reflective code markers to identify and route individual trays. A BULK PALLET CONVEYOR moves boxes weighing as much as 2,000 pounds. Laser scanners read a universal marking code on a moving pallet to report its location to a computer. Each pallet load is checked automatically for overweight and “profiled” for allowable height, width, depth and shape. The mini-stacker is a high-speed retrieval system designed for small, highdemand items. The system stores thousands of part numbers and features an automatic crane that works each of its six aisles. Sitting at a control station, the ministacker operator feeds orders through a reader into the control computer. Taking each in turn, the automatic crane moves down the aisle, selects a storage tray from the rack and brings it to the operator. When the order is filled, the crane returns that tray to storage and immediately presents the next one. BY USING A KEYPAD terminal, the operator can interrupt the sequence at any time for emergency orders. The automated storage/retrieval system for bulk parts is IBM Greencastle’s largest and most sophisticated network. Longer and wider than a football field, the building is more than 60 feet high and has more than 2,200,000 cubic feet of storage space. The system is managed and operated by a team of IBM computers which arranges the day’s workload by shipping sequence and priority code. Working at a console, an operator confirms an order. Meanwhile, in

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the adjacent warehouse, a red warning beacon blinks on as a huge crane begins to move in response to computer commands. Controlled by its on-board microprocessor, it moves down an aisle to the right row and level, takes a loaded pallet weighing as much as a ton from the storage rack and delivers it to the conveyor system. IN TURN, THE CONVEYOR sends the load down the right track and stops it literally at the operator’s feet. The operator can send the full pallet load to shipping, or dispatch any quantity over the conveyor system via tote tray or another pallet. Two separate but similar systems store and retrieve the “in-between” parts - those too large for the mini-stacker but too small and inactive for the bulk warehouse. Picker trucks are advanced forklifts. Safe in a protected area on the mast, an operator controls horizontal and vertical movement from one storage bin to the next. Signal cables buried in the concrete floor guide the trucks back and forth in the narrow lanes while they are steered manually from aisle to aisle. Rail-mounted picker cranes run about twice as fast as picker trucks. They move from row to row and level to level, pause while the operator fills an order, then move on to the next. EVERY ORDER LEAVING Greencastle is assigned a “flight number,” which denotes shipping sequence by priority code, time of order receipt and departure schedules. Utilizing a computercontrolled rolling storage loop, an operator in the shipping control center can push a button to call down completed orders for packing and shipping. Parts leaving IBM Greencastle enter an IBM parts distribution network that includes more than 20 distribution centers located throughout the United States.