STEELCASE TOUR

Steelcase's System 1 facility could be best described as an independent furniture manufacturing facility. By independent, I mean all inclusive. The facility has the capabilities to take steel coils in on one end of the building, and ship out complete furniture assemblies at the other end, with a large variety of manufacturing processes in between.

The Systems 1 facility is divided into four main departments. These four divisions; Machine, Weld, Paint, and Final Assembly, work together to produce the final product. I was impressed by the size of the facility as a whole, and even each division was a large as the manufacturing floor space used by a smaller company. It was very obvious that Steelcase produces extremely large volumes of furniture.

Some of the equipment which was operating in the machine division consisted of transfer presses, NC presses, and laser cutting machines. This was the first time I can remember seeing a transfer press in operation, and I found it to be very informative. It was also the first time I had seen laser cutting equipment. The laser cutters appeared to be both accurate and reliable. The are capably of holding very tight tolerance bands, and it was good to see them being used in industry.

The weld division of Systems 1 has highly automated. It appeared that most of the standard line of furniture panels that needed welding, had a separate line which welded the panels. The paint division was very impressive to me. In the past I have seen e-coat paint lines, but I had never seen a powder coat line before. The powder coat line uses 99% of the paint, while only 1% is lost due to over spray. This is because the spray stations recollect the powder which does not reach the parts, and the powder is recycled back through the spray station over, and over. According to our tour guide, powder coat is becoming popular due to environmental reasons. "Wet" paint lines are more hazardous, and they waste at least 50% of the paint. Currently, Systems 1 is using two "wet" lines, and one powder coat line. However, within in the next year they will be converted to three powder coat lines.

The furniture is mostly hand assembled in the final assembly division. The area is set up in work stations, and each operator's tasks are shuffled from day to day. This helps to improve the ergonomic problems of having an operator perfuming the same task every day. This is a good example of the way Steelcase treats their employees, as they continue to be a world leader in furniture manufacturing.