BorgWarner has been a transformative global product leader for over 130 years, supplying technologies to nearly every major automotive OEM in the world. They bring successful electric innovations to market while continuing to advance their emissions-reducing and fuel-efficient combustion technology, empowering everyone to drive sustainably. They proudly provide the components, systems, and partnerships their customers need to create a future where driving well means living well.
The Challenge: Improve Safety with Limited Facility Space
BorgWarner has a strong focus on safety for their employees and a drive for continuous improvement in all their facilities. Reducing potential for workplace incidents, while optimizing work areas became a focus for their Bellwood, IL facility due to limited space and the need to move heavy raw materials to multiple parts of their facility for production.
Additionally, BorgWarner wanted to focus on what processes they could improve to ensure that low inventory was never an issue in order to keep their machines running and eliminate downtime.
- Low Inventory – a workstation would shut down due to running out of parts without being notified.
- High Level of Forklift Traffic – not able to have two-way traffic in warehouse isles and high concern of safety incidents for employees.
- Inefficient Collection of Scraps and By-Products – required an additional trip with the forklift following the drop off of raw materials.
To tackle these challenges, BorgWarner was looking into a tugger train solution and happened to experience a live demonstration of the K.Hartwall LiftLiner® at the ProMat Show in 2023. This demo was able to show that the LiftLiner® could carry a load equivalent to six forklifts and fit through narrow spaces, ultimately capturing their interest in testing this out at their own facility.
The Solution: Implementing the LiftLiner® Tugger Train at BorgWarner’s IL Facility
Tugger Trains, like the LiftLiner®, are great for a fully electric logistics solution and ideal for those wanting a forklift free environment. The LiftLiner® provides more unique benefits over other products in the market including:
- Extremely space-efficient and agile
- Loading and unloading from either side
- Innovative lifting and tilting technology
- Safe, ergonomic, and user-friendly
- Lifts in 3 seconds and carries 2200 pounds (1 tonne) per loading bay
After BorgWarner had the chance to test the LiftLiner® in their facility, they worked together with K.Hartwall to come up with the best solution for their Illinois location. This included the purchase of 6 LiftLiner® tugger trains, each designed to serve a particular area in the plant for best route flow and to eliminate forklifts. This implementation resulted in the replacement of 16 forklifts, cutting their total fleet in half.
“The LiftLiner had the tightest turning radius of all the tugger trains we looked at, this was a major determining factor due to space constraints,” says Kaustubh Vade – Technologies Integrator at BorgWarner.
As an added discovery, BorgWarner was able to optimize their process of dropping off and picking up their scrap materials. Previously, a forklift would pick up a pallet of product and drop it off at one station. If there were scrap materials needing to be picked up it would require another trip to the same station. With the implementation of the LiftLiner®, they are now able to drop products and pick up scrap materials in the same trip, reducing forklift traffic and improving operating costs.
The LiftLiner® was able to provide cost savings, safety, and sustainability benefits including:
- Improved operating cost by leasing less forklifts
- Faster communication and replenishment of raw materials
- Reduced safety incidents from forklift traffic
- Improved carbon footprint
“Reducing CO2 emissions is a major focus for BorgWarner’s Sustainability goals. The LiftLiner® being all electric and reducing forklifts helps us achieve that goal as well,” says Kacper T Pyrek – Materials Supervisor at BorgWarner.
BorgWarner also implemented K.Hartwall Daughter Carts, which work seamlessly with the tugger train, only solidifying their decision-making. These Daughter Carts were the ultimate solution to reducing forklift traffic and improving ergonomics in their production facility. Some additional benefits included:
- Raw materials could be pre-loaded onto the Daughter Carts in a staging area, with 4 to 6 units loaded at once (this is equivalent to having 4 to 6 forklifts performing the same job).
- Durable and ergonomically efficient, allowing their employees to push weights over 2000lbs around the facility by hand. These carts are now in operation throughout the plant being used for multiple purposes without a tugger train or forklift.
BorgWarner was able to get the LiftLiner® and Daughter Carts integrated into their system to increase delivery speed, reduce incidents and traffic, as well as see an economical benefit from reduced costs of leasing equipment. Their facility located just west of Chicago, is operating in a tight urban environment which prevents them from expanding their space. Having the LiftLiner® solution allows them to continue working in this location with better conditions for employees and more efficient use of time, space, and energy.
Alex Stone
Regional Sales Manager North America
[email protected]
