Movers and shakers: Utah manufacturers deliver the goods.

• Author: King, Heather L.
• Position: Manufacturing & Distribution - Grandway USA, Motor Cargo Industries, SK Daifuku

MANUFACTURING AND DISTRIBUTING

consumer products is big business around the world, and several Utah companies are leading the way in our own market by developing innovative solutions to getting products to retailers' shelves as fast and cost-effectively as possible. From mechanization of processes to physical distribution, these Utah companies are setting the pace for others to follow.

Automation

Since the Industrial Age, companies have relied upon the speed and efficiency that mechanized systems can provide. Utah-based SK Daifuku has been designing and installing state-of-the-art automated material handling systems for companies around the world since 1937, and the company recently introduced the latest in small items sortation technology, the Piece Sorter, which allows for the widest range of product sizes and shapes to be sorted quickly and efficiently while keeping space efficiency at a maximum. David Janke, vice president of sales and marketing for SK Daifuku, explains, "In today's environment, companies compete more on customer service, quality and time to market than they do on the actual product itself, so automation helps with that in a great way."

Janke continues, "One of the trends throughout the United States and the world is that companies are recognizing that distribution of the product is becoming a core competence, and they are differentiating themselves from their competitors through their distribution expertise." This differentiation is exemplified by one of SK Daifuku's large clients, Dell Computers, which builds and ships a completely customized computer for a customer in just two hours after the order has been placed. "We have provided the distribution automation for most of Dell's facilities in Texas and Tennessee," Janke says. "We like to tell our customers that there's no Dell computer shipped that hasn't touched our equipment somehow"

In addition to distribution automation, factory automation (which involves the actual mechanized building of products) offers a way to reduce costs by lowering headcount, but mainly, it results in improved quality of manufactured goods. "A company would consider using factory automation or distribution automation as a way of reducing their costs and time to market, as well as improving their quality, customer responsiveness or accuracy," says Janke. "Even if the automation doesn't result in a reduction in people, it often leads to a dramatic improvement in accuracy of inventory...