CASE STUDY No. 9606
KEY WORDS PLATE GLASS, BULK SHIPMENTS
Alpine Windows
19720 Bothel-Everett Highway S.E.
Bothel, WA 98012
Contact: Tom Picher, Environmental Officer. Tel: 206-481-7101. Fax: 800-825-7463.
Summary
Elimination of the wooden crating used to ship plate glass to a window manufacturer has saved, annually, $230,000 in crate expense and $35,000 in labor.
Action
Alpine Windows is one of the largest window manufacturers in the Northwest, employing 400 people. Previously, Alpine's glass supplier delivered bulk packages of glass in wooden crates. For example, a number of sheets of window glass measuring 96" x 120" would be packed upright inside a wooden crate, secured with steel strapping on the outside. Crates weighed 4,000 lbs. gross and were shipped aboard a flatbed truck by common carrier. The glass supplier charged $50 each for the 12 to 24 crates used for daily shipments to Alpine--daily crating costs ranged from $600 to $1,200.
Because of the distance between supplier and window factory--900 miles-- and delivery by common carrier, eliminating the possible option of dead-heading crates back to their origin at minimal cost, the crates became an expensive pile of free wood, which Alpine placed out for scavengers, and they gladly took away. Periodically, Alpine gathered the broken remnants and hauled them to a wood recycler at an average cost of $200 per trip. Thus, all wood was put to beneficial reuse--but at considerable expense.
The opportunity to eliminate crates became apparent when Alpine adopted new technology for feeding individual sheets of glass into the glass cutter. Previously, whole crates were removed from the flatbed truck by forklift and placed on a cart for transport to the production area, where the crate was opened and sheets were picked up one at a time by suction cups and placed on the feeder.
The new feeder method permits the glass supplier to load uncrated packs of glass against an A-frame structure on a flatbed truck, covering the packs with tarps and securing the load with tie-downs. At Alpine, these uncrated packs are unloaded by a forklift rigged with a boom and nylon web slings. Packs are placed on a trolley rigged with an A-frame and moved to the production area, where individual sheets of glass are peeled from the pack and fall onto the feeder table. Under this "free-fall" system, air pressure slows the fall rate of the glass, preventing it from breaking.
Payback
Alpine invested about $400,000 in the new free-fall system, manufactured by Bystronic, Inc., Hauppauge, NY. It has a service life of 20 years. Alpine recovered this capital expense in 20 months by eliminating the cost of crates.
Additional Waste Prevented
Uncrated packs of glass contain 50% more sheets of glass than the same number of
crated packs. Thus, restock time is cut by a very significant amount. Alpine estimates the
annual labor saving at $35,000.