Mankind started out as hunters and gatherers.  As this Chinese proverb reminds us, “Man who sits on side of mountain waiting for roast duck to fly into mouth, waits a long time.”  The goods were not coming to the man.  Hunger kicked in and we invented a Man to Goods model. Even inventing the wheel did little to change this model.  It made it easier for the man to move the goods but he still used a Man to Goods operating system.

  Henry Ford perceived the benefit of the Goods to Man system. He utilized wheels in the form of conveyors to create what would become the modern assembly line.  This made some dramatic improvements, but it had some constraints. A particularly funny I Love Lucy episode comes to mind which dramatizes what happens when the assembly line delivery of chocolates exceeds Lucy’s ability to pack.  Thus, rigid operating constraints confined conveyor based Goods to Man systems to carefully chosen applications

Much further down the technology path, we discovered that it was possible to combine wheels with computer intelligence.  In the logistic industry, we apply AGV (automatic guided vehicles ) to add flexibility to the historic conveyors.  Autonomous vehicles (like those made by Wesley International– http://www.packmule.com/) can deliver trailers of goods to operators when needed, or in the most expensive variation robots (like the Kiva system) gather, deliver and store goods as commanded by the workers that they serve.  In all cases we are reinventing the wheel as a new tool for implementing a Goods to Man system.

  The customers who use the autonomous vehicles and transport carts provided by Wesley International are also pleased with the secondary benefits.  Goods delivered to the work cells are delivered on wheeled carts such that they can be easily moved for cleaning.  Many of us are proud of the resultant clean hospital look of our factories. Wheels that have been added to many of the transport carts simplify visual management and enable operators to position the goods in the desired locations at exactly the right time.

photo courtesy of i-trac

We can’t claim inventing the wheel.  However, re-inventing how wheels are used by applying them to state of the art Logistics applications makes everyone’s life easier and creates Lean Logistics.

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