We are excited to announce that a new robotic stacker has been installed at the Wheatland Tube – Council plant. The process began in August of 2017 with visits to facilities who currently hand pack conduit products. After observing how processes were currently being done, we concluded that this might be something a robot could do and by October 2017, we were exploring companies that could provide us with a solid solution.

The robot has the capability to lift and stack products similar to what would normally take two people to do if they were lifting the product from each end. The conduit line at Council is automated so that people are not involved in the stacking of the products, the previous process had no means for creating a stacked bundle. The robot provided the stacking capability and the option to run different products that requires stacking to prevent damaging threaded ends. This robot will allow the team to produce bundles that are safer to ship and stock. We are producing great looking square lifts with this robot, the quality of the lift before and after are not even comparable. It is a nice upgrade and the addition of this robot did not require us to displace any workers, it just provided significant enhancements to the process.

This robot opens opportunities for TBE bundles to be packaged in a presentable way, it will also aid in warehousing our conduit products while introducing a modern manufacturing technique to a facility that had been operating with minimal advancements to processes for many years.