June
 2004

The Toronto Star has wrapped up its $5 million, two-year project to upgrade its AGV fleet, replacing an obsolete and unreliable system with one designed to handle shifting demands.

The Star, (daily, 500,000; Saturday, 700,000) replaced its aging fleet of 56 AGVs with 49 laser-guided vehicles from Egemin Automation Inc. Of the 49, 19 new ones were placed in the Star’s reelroom while the remainder were retrofitted and positioned in the newspaper’s mailroom, said Barry Villiers, the Star’s production systems and training manager.



After the project's completion, retooled AGVs in the Star's mailroom, above, and new AGVs in the paper's reelroom, below, streamlined operations.
Photos: Egemin Automation

The newspaper’s search for replacement AGVs began in 2001 when managers found they could no longer source critical spare parts.

“The choice became whether to replace, upgrade or scrap the AGV systems,” Villiers said. “The justification process was interesting because it was based on the future costs and liability of removing the system as opposed to replacing it.”

Villiers said another consideration was to find a vendor that the Star could partner with to build a “showplace” system and one whose technology wasn’t tightly tied to proprietary controls.

After months of meetings, planning and site visits, the Star picked Egemin, in part because the vendor satisfied the Star’s needs and in part because it recommended rebuilding the newspaper’s existing fleet of mailroom vehicles instead of just scrapping them.

Keeping the old, adding new

Egemin, Villiers said, promised to engineer a retrofit package that could be installed easily by the Star’s maintenance staff. Technicians stripped the vehicles down to their frames, keeping components such as drive motors and fork assemblies and adding enhancements such as PC-based controls, a custom charging system and laser guidance, according to Dave Noble, Egemin’s director of marketing.

 “We stripped everything off, added new skin and new controls,” he said.

Mailroom AGVs move product from pallets to inserters and loading docks, thus eliminating manual intervention.
Photo: Egemin Automation

The Star’s 19 new reelroom units replaced 20 old AGVs whose performance had dropped to the point they could no longer service the daily’s six MAN Roland Inc. 12-unit presses.

“On a six-press, 72-reelstand run, we were forced to deliver manually to two or three of the presses,” said Villiers. “With the new system, performance improved radically. We can now run as few as 12 new AGVs and easily keep up with a full six-press run.”

All vehicles, both reel and mailing room, have a 3,000-pound capacity and are linked by a Wi-Fi wireless network. The units travel over routes that span over 40,000 linear feet.

The guide paths are easily modified by Star personnel using Egemin-supplied software on a conventional autocad drawing application. The resulting design is then downloaded to the vehicles.

“This allows us to change, create, and test quickly, with no impact on production and at negligible cost,” he said.

The Star’s new AGV fleet is also allowing the newspaper to tap into key production and MIS information, Villiers said, filling in the gap that existed with the legacy AGV system.

“The Star has pressed for a fully automatic inventory system since opening its Vaughan Press Center in Woodbridge in 1991,” Villiers said. “The system’s many components act like a chain carrying key production data to management and the AGV system had become a weak link.”

To obtain the data Star managers needed, Egemin authored a pick-and-place method that meshes with the newspaper’s sophisticated management and inventory host software.

Through that conduit, the host system directs the Egemin E’tricc controller to pick up a load at one location and drop it at another, in the process allowing the daily to track an individual roll’s lifetime from paper mill to reelstand arm.

“This tightens our knowledge and allows us to analyze paster performance to determine and predict paper quality and maintenance needs while ensuring that the oldest paper in stock is delivered to press first,” Villiers said.

In the mailroom, where the Star already tracks product arrival, departure and temporary inventory locations, the AGVs move product “seamlessly from palletizer to inserter or loading dock,” he said. “Productivity gains in both rooms have been impressive.”

Villiers said working closely with Egemin paid dividends. “We are very pleased with the informal partnership we have with them.”