Hilltop Business Services and The Arc of Livingston-Wyoming Counties assembles window latches in large quantities. The company is interested in improving their financial performance relative to the assembly of these latches. They are looking to automate this process in order to increase productivity and generate cost savings. The latch is made by assembling three distinct parts provided by a third-party supplier. This product is produced in very high volumes at Hilltop. The number of people assembling latches varies, but can be as high as 20.

The goal of this project is to improve the process of assembling the product, using automation to the greatest extent practical. The ideal outcome, per the customer, would be full automation with a single material handler. If full automation is not possible, the goal is to supply a device or process that reduces the required labor to assemble the product by 75% (reduce to 5 individuals), which will enable redeployment of those people to other tasks. Alternatively, a device or process that requires partial human interaction could be supplied. In this case, the device or process should increase the volume of the latches produced by 35 to 50%. The system should be safe for human interaction, and must maintain the same quality for parts being currently produced.

Project Name

Hilltop Window Latches

Project Number

P19711

Project Family

project family (if relevant)

Start Term

2181

End Term

2185

Faculty Guide

John Kaemmerlen, jxkpdm@rit.edu

Primary Customer

Mike Fitch, Mfitch@lwarc.org

Sponsor (financial support)

Hilltop Business Services

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