MACHINE production will soon begin at Komatsu Forest’s newly built factory outside Umeå in northern Sweden.

Assembly will take place on a single production line, around which the flows of both materials and people are optimised and automated to ensure high product quality and a high level of customer service, Komatsu said.

Work recently began to introduce around 220 employees to the new production system.

“Our new production set-up offers many advantages, including the ability to follow up quality, availability and safety in detail. Our customers will also experience greater flexibility and shorter lead times,” commented factory manager Anna Fredriksson.

The assembly line is driven by driverless forklifts that automatically move along the production line at slow speed. This is intended to enable a new, safer way of working as the machines do not need to be lifted to move them along the line.

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A new inventory management system tracks where each component is in the process and ensures its correct location in the flow. Moreover, most components are stored indoors in the warm, which ensures not only better quality, but also shorter lead times.

Internal quality control is also better planned at the new factory, with any identified shortcomings in quality rectified as early as possible in the production process.

Fredriksson added: “This is an important step in the history of Komatsu Forest. We are both happy and proud to be commissioning our new plant. At the same time, this is just the beginning – the office building will also be completed by the end of the year, and it will only be then that all employees are gathered in one place.

“This is where the fun begins, in our long-term efforts to manage all these new opportunities.”

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