OVERCOMING MATERIAL HANDLING PROBLEMS

January / February 1991 By R Rogalski and Scott Thompson

At five a.m. on an early spring morning, Al Thomas, owner of Windy Acres Nursery, Oceanview, New Jersey, considers the day's shipments of plant material while sipping his coffee at Marge's Diner.

His concern is one that most growers have, how to push large quantities of quality plant material out of his greenhouses to customers, in the shortest period of time, using the least amount of labor.

The fact is, that on any given day, these growers are looking for the fastest, most economical way to relocate crop. Whether it be to another location for continued finished production on the range or direct shipment from the facility to an account, the material handling cost is a major part of the growing business equation.

Al's crop type is floor-grown bedding plant flats, which finish growing in multiple units of individual 17' X 84' Criterion quonset style greenhouses.

These houses were originally installed for overwintering perennial material (hydrangeas). They are covered with three layers of inflated poly film and have environmental equipment to maintain a temperature of 45º F inside with one of 0º F outside. The outer layer of the three films is winter white, designed to reduce foot candles within the house and thus prevent solar build-up on sunny winter days.

The hydrangea material is either shipped prefinished or relocated to production areas with root zone hot water radiant heat, rather than overhead hot air heat, to force plant growth. The white poly is then removed. The house is now covered with two layers of clear inflated film and ready to produce an environment suited to finishing various varieties of bedding plants.

This multiple cropping program allows Al to free valuable production space in areas that have higher levels of environmental control in terms of light, heat and ventilation, thus higher levels of dollars per square foot invested (capital). Participation in this type of program will allow younger, more delicate, crops to be propagated in the higher dollar per square foot area with bottom heat, misting booms, fan and pad ventilation, lighting and shade systems. Relocation of hardier material to production areas with lower dollars per square foot (the 17' houses) will help meet shipping timetables, customer demand, and projected profits and reduced payback periods on the equipment.

In the past, plug trays were taken from propagating areas in the gutter houses, transplanted, then placed by hand on rolling carts to be transferred to the 17' houses along a four-foot concrete walkway. The flats were again hand carried from the walkway and spaced out in the 17' houses. The flats were left to grow until the shipment time when they were pulled by hand, carried out of the endwall door and placed on rolling carts. The rolling carts handled forty 1020 size flats per trip and were wheeled to the staging area for loading. If vehicles in the staging area were not ready for shipment, the carts and material would sit idle and either additional carts had to be used to repeat the process or employees sent to do other jobs.

Al had had previous experience with a monorail system and realized it's merits in this application considering the available space and the cost of the systems currently in use. He decided to install a Fastrak monorail system manufactured by X S SMITH, INC.

Phase I of the Windy Acres Fastrak installation included a track run in each of the 17' X 84' free-standing greenhouses running off-center to avoid the existing thermostats and equipment. The track was offset to go through the door in the center of each endwall. A 150' track run, supported by columns adjacent to the walkway, interconnected the free-standing houses. The track then extended past the houses to an area used to load delivery vans.

A cart was designed with four adjustable shelves and 12 inch spacing to accommodate five 1020-flats per shelf or 20 flats per cart. It could be adjusted to three and two shelf configurations with variable shelf clearance dimensions.

The carts have recently been retrofitted with casters which allow them to be used in areas not presently equipped with the Fastrak.

The system was installed by Al, with help from Rich Lynch and Tom Sath, in about 30 hours, with a minimum of field fabrication, reducing down time. With the system in place, finished materials could be transported from the greenhouse to the loading area using less time and labor.

Al reports a 40% reduction in material handling as a result of using the Fastrak monorail system and a one year payback on his investment.

Phase II, now being built, calls for the Fastrak system to interconnect six bays of a gutter-connected greenhouse with the dry storage area. The track run will be supported by the existing columns and will run the length of each bay. The carts in this phase will be shorter than in Phase I as the gutter-connected houses contain benches and have a finished crop height of 24 inches. A two-shelf cart with casters will allow movement into the dry storage, seed room and plug production areas.

Phase III will expand the system into the transplanting area which will allow flats to be moved directly into the 17' free-standing Smith houses.

If you are planning a system, some basic information that you will require is as follows:

• The size and shape of the structure and it's members that will support the system.
• The location of the system in the structure.
• The distance from the floor to the structural member.
• Finished crop height and / or bench height where the system will be running.
• Size and height of containers.
• On more complex systems involving the inter-connection of multiple greenhouses, a simple site plan sketch will help in the planning process.

There are many ways to save time in present day greenhouse operations. Few, however, can be accomplished with the ease and economy of a material handling system, such as the Fastrak by X S SMITH, INC.