Yamaha Motor Manufacturing Corp., which builds WaveRunner personal watercraft, among other products, last week broke ground on a sequenced material and reduced transportation warehouse in Newnan, Ga., according to a statement.
“The new Yamaha SMART warehouse will improve our overall operational efficiency and the velocity of material flow to our factory assembly lines, allowing us to ultimately get product in the hands of our dealers and customers faster,” Mike Chrzanowski, president and CEO of Yamaha Motor Corp. said in the statement. “The demand for all our outdoor recreational products produced at this factory continues to exceed supply, and we are pleased to bring this new warehouse facility online as soon as possible.”
Yamaha said the SMART warehouse’s automated system for medium parts will be capable of retrieving and putting away 240 containers per hour, compared with the current 170 containers per hour.
The small-part automated system will be capable of handling 2,400 containers per hour, compared with the current capability of 550 containers per day. Yamaha said the new systems will reduce forklifts by 50 percent, using automatic conveyors and tuggers to move parts.
