CASE STUDY
Kelly-Moore Paint Company
Alvey robotic palletizers from Intelligrated paint a picture
of efficiency for Kelly-Moore
automation that delivers™
www.intelligrated.com
CASE STUDY
Alvey robotic palletizers from
Intelligrated paint a picture of
efficiency for Kelly-Moore
Willingness to invest in future yields big dividends with 76% return on
investment in first year.
Headquartered in San Carlos, CA, this carbon neutral manufacturing facility needed to
keep pace with the advances in the company’s product lines. Hand palletizing of products
weighing up to 70 pounds and production flow inefficiencies pointed to some obvious areas
needing improvement.
Beginning in 1946 with a single manufacturing facility in San Carlos, California,
Kelly-Moore Paints™ has grown to the largest employee-owned, and the 5th
largest paint company, in the United States.
Supporting over 165 local stores, Kelly-Moore is “the
painter’s paint store,” providing high-quality paint
and related products to contractors, commercial
and maintenance accounts, and do-it-yourself consumers. Today, the company
maintains two facilities - in California and Texas - manufacturing and distributing
nearly 15 million gallons of paint per year. State-of-the-art on-site laboratories
ensure quality control and produce some of the most technologically advanced
paint products available, including their eCoat Recycled and Zero-VOC Enviro Coat
and Green Coat lines.
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Kelly-Moore Paint Company
www.intelligrated.com
CASE STUDY
The challenge
When Plant Manager Keith Hussinger joined Kelly-Moore at their San Carlos,
California headquarters four years ago, one thing was clear; Kelly-Moore’s
manufacturing process had not kept pace with the advances in the company’s
product lines.
As an employee-owned company, Kelly-Moore has a strong focus on the safety
and ergonomic issues concerning their employees; however, hand palletizing of
products weighing up to 70 pounds and production flow inefficiencies pointed to
some obvious areas needing improvement. Even with a vacuum assist, the manual
lifting was an issue of worker comfort as well as production efficiency.
The building selected to receive upgrades would soon begin production of KellyMoore’s most advanced – and most technically difficult – product lines. These lines
typically have smaller runs with a higher SKU change rate, demanding flexibility in
both the production and the handling of product. At this point, the Kelly-Moore
team, led by Hussinger, actively set out to find a material handling partner who
could meet the company’s needs.
End-of-arm tooling from Intelligrated, lifting five-gallon pails in groups of three to the
build station, contains a custom-designed ring within the vacuum plenum to prevent the
flow of air from pulling out a tinting port.
Finding a palletizing solution partner
Visiting the FKI Logistex® (now Intelligrated®) booth at PACK EXPO in 2008,
Hussinger was impressed with the knowledge of the company’s end-of-line
material handling integration team as well as the capabilities available, particularly
the single-source responsibility for system design, fabrication, installation,
commissioning and local customer support. Taking bids from several integrators and
independent palletizing companies, Kelly-Moore chose Intelligrated and its line of
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Kelly-Moore Paint Company
www.intelligrated.com
CASE STUDY
Once the buckets are filled
and sealed, they are conveyed
via 15 feet of Accuglide
zero-pressure accumulation
conveyor.
Alvey® robotic palletizers based on the company’s reputation, 60 years of palletizing
experience, breadth of product and integration capabilities. “What we found with
Intelligrated was exactly what we wanted: a complete, turnkey installation with the
experienced team to support it,” said Hussinger.
“The challenges that we knew we faced – and, maybe more importantly,
the ones we did not know about – were pretty significant. We needed a
partner that could work with us to engineer a solution that fit our needs
in a scalable way.”
Intelligrated rose to the challenge. A design team, with specialists in conventional,
robotic and hybrid palletizing manufacturing and integration, was assigned to the
Kelly-Moore project and led by Intelligrated’s Director of Robotics Integration,
Bill Natsch. The Alvey robotic palletizing system would be built, assembled and
tested in St. Louis and installed by Intelligrated’s local Los Angeles-based technicians.
An engineered solution
With strict space limitations in the building, the Intelligrated team set out to design
the most compact solution for the building’s manufacturing processes. Building
columns set in the middle of the room made fitting the palletizing cells a tight
squeeze with only inches to spare. The system designers wanted to ensure that
Kelly-Moore would not have to make any structural changes to the building to
accommodate its final design.
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Kelly-Moore Paint Company
www.intelligrated.com
CASE STUDY
The Kelly-Moore manufacturing process revolves around four lines: two lines
handling smaller, conventional gallon and quart paint cans; and the other two
handling larger, five gallon pails. It was decided that two robotic arms would
meet the palletizing rates that Kelly-Moore required. In this case, the Alvey robotic
palletizing system used robotic arms sourced from long-time partner Motoman.
“It’s the end-of-arm tooling and system controls that we add that really
customizes the solution to fit the need,” explained Natsch.
Unwrapped trays of quart or gallon paint cans presented an early challenge for
the end-of-arm tool designers. The solution demanded a tool that could pick up
configurations of 2x2 gallon and 3x3 quart paint can patterns, and their respective
loose cardboard trays. Intelligrated decided that the best solution for this particular
product was an end-of-arm tool with an additional vacuum arm specifically for
the cardboard tray. Working with Tepro Machine & Pac System and its line of
Unigripper® lifting tools, the final design lifts the cans and secures the tray with a
separate pivoting vacuum arm that descends as product is moved to the pallet.
The five-gallon pails posed their own engineering challenge. A two-inch diameter
tinting port on each lid that allowed customers to tint the paint in the store could
not withstand a vacuum. The solution was end-of-arm tooling that would be
designed and manufactured by Intelligrated with a custom-designed ring within
the vacuum plenum to prevent the flow of air from pulling out this port. The pails
would then be lifted three-at-a-time and palletized in a nested configuration.
Continuous improvement, improving the earth
Kelly-Moore Paint’s San Carlos headquarters is a carbon-neutral, certified green
business and recipient of the 2010 Large Green Business of the Year Award*.
“Our products are engineered with a ‘continuous improvement’ mentality –
and we have put that to work in the manufacturing process as well,” said Keith
Hussinger, plant manager for Kelly-Moore Paints. “We knew that we had the
corporate support to invigorate and update our manufacturing process.”
Leading 100,000 California companies, Kelly-Moore was selected by the Green
Business Committee in 2009 for its series of recycling and improvement programs
that diverted 80 percent of its waste and for its ability to motivate employees to
commit to its recycling effort, a rare achievement for a company in the chemicalbased paint industry. Kelly-Moore was also recognized for its carbon offset
program resulting in the San Carlos plant being carbon neutral.
“Our employees can see the benefits of the Alvey robotic palletizer,” said Hussinger.
“It makes them more willing to participate in some of our other initiatives; it proves
that we’re not just talking about change. Winning awards like the “Large Green
Business of the Year” is a result of our hard work, our willingness to invest in the
future and our commitment to continuous improvement.”
* 2010 Large Green Business of the Year Award is hosted by the San Carlos
Chamber of Commerce
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Paramount Citrus
Kelly-Moore
Paint Company
www.intelligrated.com
CASE STUDY
Unwrapped trays of quart and
gallon paint cans presented a
challenge for the end-of-arm
tooling. Working with Tepro,
the final design lifts the cans
and secures the tray with a
separate pivoting vacuum arm
that descends while product is
moved to the pallet.
Key benefits: zero-pressure accumulation and line changeovers
without delay or retooling
Once the pails are filled and sealed, they are conveyed via 15 feet of Accuglide™
zero-pressure accumulation conveyor. Zero-pressure accumulation is critical with
a circular product, like paint cans or pails, where any line pressure would be
concentrated at the point of contact between adjacent pails and product back
ups could create a jam or push the pails off of the conveyor. The heavier fivegallon lines are equipped with escapements to position the product in a precise
location to allow the robot to pick them up in groups of three.
Based on Kelly-Moore’s original specifications, the system design did not call for
the Alvey robotic palletizer to handle pallets. However, Intelligrated determined
that the robot could handle the empty pallet placement at the build positions
without significantly impacting the speed of production. This design change
alone saved Kelly-Moore $25,000.
Both robotic arms repeatedly pick and place cans or pails from the infeed
conveyors and stack them sequentially on the waiting pallets. Multiple layers are
built on the pallet until the pallet load is complete. Once a pallet is complete,
it is conveyed on Intelligrated chain driven live roller pallet conveyor to a new
Lantech® stretch wrapper supplied by Intelligrated. “Before, we were securing our
pail pallets with rope,” said Hussinger. “The wrapper is a much more forwardthinking piece of equipment, and speaks to the wide range of integration
technologies Intelligrated can bring to the table.”
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Kelly-Moore Paint Company
www.intelligrated.com
CASE STUDY
As with all robotic projects, Intelligrated completed a factory acceptance test (FAT)
for the Kelly-Moore project at its St. Louis, MO engineering and manufacturing
facility. During the FAT, all robotic functions, including pallet handling and product
palletizing for both the trays and pails, were completed. Project management,
installation as well as startup and commissioning services for the project were
executed by the Intelligrated western regional office based in Sacramento, CA.
Key to this system was the ability of the Alvey robotic palletizer to accommodate
quick line changeovers. This flexibility proved invaluable shortly after installation,
when a large Kelly-Moore customer requested a custom run of three-gallon
pails. Although they had the same footprint as the five-gallon product, the
new pails were several inches shorter. Intelligrated handled the request with a
straightforward pattern addition, avoiding the typical retooling required for a
conventional end-of-line installation.
Results: 76% return on investment in first year and 80% reduction
in changeover time
The system was installed and delivered on time and on budget during KellyMoore’s off-peak season in January and February 2009. Over the next year, the
improved San Carlos facility experienced impressive results.
“In only one year, we have had an incredible 76 percent ROI in our labor time,”
said Hussinger. “We were able to cut out almost all overtime, but still fill our
orders. Without a doubt, this project has exceeded our expectations in both
efficiency and numbers. Additionally, our main goal of increasing worker comfort
and safety was met, as the number of our lost-time accidents decreased rapidly,
from 23 in 2005 to five in 2009.”
The automated end-of-line system has enabled the line to run at an even pace
throughout the day, as the breaks required by heavy lifting from the old manual
palletizing system were eliminated. Line changeovers, which took 45 minutes of
downtime with the old system, today take only nine minutes. This represents an
80 percent reduction in line changeover time.
“The transformation has been incredible. What was the most outdated
of our buildings has quickly become our state-of-the-art gem,” said
Hussinger. “This is the building that we showcase to our clients. The Alvey
robotic system lends a forward-looking element that we believe reflects
our vision of where we are going with our product lines – clean, efficient
and technically advanced.”
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Kelly-Moore Paint Company
www.intelligrated.com
CASE STUDY
From left, Project Manager Tim Lasko, Intelligrated; Maintenance Manager Brendan
Ingraham, Kelly-Moore; Plant Manager Keith Hussinger, Kelly-Moore.
Kelly-Moore system overview
• Intelligrated Alvey robotic palletizing system
integrating Motoman EPL-160 robotic arms
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• Intelligrated Accuglide™ accumulation conveyor
• Vacuum Tooling:
Intelligrated
Tepro Machine & Pac Systems
• Intelligrated pallet dispenser
• Pallet Dispenser: Intelligrated
• Intelligrated chain driven live roller pallet conveyor
• Stretch Wrapper: Lantech
• Intelligrated pallet transfers
• Controls & Programming Software: Intelligrated
• Conveyors: Intelligrated
• System Design: Intelligrated
• Robotic Arms: Motoman
• System Integration: Intelligrated
Paramount Citrus
Kelly-Moore
Paint Company
www.intelligrated.com
CASE STUDY
About Intelligrated
Intelligrated is a leading North American-based, single-source provider of intelligent
automated material handling solutions that drive distribution and fulfillment
productivity for retailers, manufacturers and logistics providers around the world.
Through a broad portfolio of automation equipment, software, service and support,
Intelligrated solutions optimize processes, increase efficiency and give businesses a
competitive edge.
Intelligrated designs, manufactures, integrates and installs complete material
handling automation solutions including conveyor systems, sortation systems,
palletizers, robotics and order picking technologies – all managed by advanced
machine controls and software. Solutions include industry-leading Intelligratedmanufactured Alvey, RTS™ and IntelliSort® brand equipment and Knighted®
warehouse management (WMS), warehouse control (WCS) and labor
management software.
Every project is backed by Intelligrated’s 24X7 multilingual technical support and
access to lifecycle service through a network of national, regional and local service
centers. From concept to integration to lifecycle support, Intelligrated automation
delivers distribution and fulfillment success.
For more information, contact Intelligrated:
+ 1 866.936.7300
info@intelligrated.com
www.intelligrated.com
7901 Innovation Way, Mason, Ohio 45040
KMPCS02 11.13 © Intelligrated.
www.intelligrated.com