Parts Mangment

[PantherRobotics]

Wow thanks for the quick feedback.

I have been using a lot of these, and was wondering if there was a better system.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sterilite...h-Box/20682863

To refine my earlier post how do you get student buy in to keeping the parts organized?

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by PantherRobotics

To refine my earlier post how do you get student buy in to keeping the parts organized?

I recommend taking your team through 5S methodology. We are in the process of adopting this on 1678, it's a great way to teach student an industry standard AND get more buy-in on continual organization improvement. My workplace uses 5S extensively.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5S_(methodology)

Best,

-Mike

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

I recommend taking your team through 5S methodology. We are in the process of adopting this on 1678, it's a great way to teach student an industry standard AND get more buy-in on continual organization improvement. My workplace uses 5S extensively.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5S_(methodology)

Best,

-Mike

Thanks for the share Mike! We do most of these informally, but after seeing this, its a great resource start to make it more formal.
My students are going to hate me even more now!
I'm anal about everything at our shops.
My quote in life......"Everything in life should be parallel and perpendicular!"

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

I recommend taking your team through 5S methodology. We are in the process of adopting this on 1678, it's a great way to teach student an industry standard AND get more buy-in on continual organization improvement. My workplace uses 5S extensively.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5S_(methodology)

Best,

-Mike

+1 to doing this in the workplace. Both internships I've had do the same.

[MonroeM]

I follow, in both our mechatronics lab and in my home work shop, the Adam Savage theory of first order of retrievability. Tool stack drawers are truly the death of hand tools. When working you can never find what you need and have to move other stuff to get to it. It's nice to see everything that you have and nothing is hidden. The main part of the system is that the things you use the most are the easiest to access. Some stuff can still go in drawers, but you can easily do away with a bunch of tool stacks. I recommend you check out some of Adam's tool organization techniques on http://www.tested.com.

[MrRoboSteve]

We use flip top totes like this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/12-Gal-He...-001/203664499 for larger item storage, and

The 13 gallon Sterilite containers with removable tops, and the 13 gallon light duty totes are both not durable enough.

The totes provided by FIRST with the KOP (aka the 2015 game piece) weigh too much when they're full (injury risk), so we use them primarily for back stock storage.

We designed and built two RoboStore carts that we use to move our build materials to/from our storeroom: https://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/pa...9f23e9ebd7914&

[Why_A_Username?]

Great question!

Recently, Team 2910 has been doing some reorganization. Our new system is comprised of:

1. Peg board for hand tools

2 2015 and KOP tote bins for motors, gearboxes and their components, and chains and sprockets.

3. Custom built shelving to hold totes, boxes, Sheet metal, Plywood, and anything else we need. (pictured here


4. shelving to hold screws, nuts, bolts, washers, etc...

5. Stacking roller cases to carry our tools to competitions.

Hope this helps!

[Chief Hedgehog]

FRC 4607 uses Sterilite Containers to house most of our components (they are readily available at any department store and Amazon). We store them in our crib room and old pit.

We have now started to utilize InFlow software to track all of our inventory. The plus side is it is free - up to 100 products/customers. The downside is that once you hit 100 products/customers (easily done with a FRC team), you will need to purchase their upgrade for $399. Seems expensive, but if you have a dedicated squad, it may be worth it. Our SILP (Safety, Inventory, Loss Prevention) Squad just started working with this over a month ago and they love it. Can you imagine 3-4 high school students geeking out over inventory?

The great thing is that once the program is set up and the parameters are set, a simple barcode reader with a usb ($80-120) can aid in this venture. It is also another great project for the code squad to work on.

[DonRotolo]

1676 uses something like this for components.
Raw materials are stored in a pipe rack or a special area for sheet goods.
Sterilite boxes are good for projects
Totes are used for major component types (motors, pneumatics, belts & pulleys, and so on.
Hardware is in those Harbor Freight bin totes mentioned.
Tools go into Tool Boxes, with labeled drawers.

[runneals]

In our ME lab on campus, they have a sweet Grainger Cabinet

[Wayne Doenges]

For our hardware, we have what we call a General Store.
Stanley makes a convenient compartmented storage container that measures about 18" X 15" x 4". We had 80/20 cut us some extrusion which we built into a roll around storage cabinet with 8 columns X 2 rows of pull out shelves. Each shelf holds two storage containers, front to back, so it can hold 32 storage containers. Works great.

[BigHorse]

We used to use recycle rush bins and some very messy kits and ziploc bags. That worked decently, but as the season went on, everything just became way too cluttered for us to be productive. I can't even count the number of times someone vaguely remembered a part and the pit crew spent close to twenty minutes tearing up our totes to find it.

This offseason we put some real work into sorting all of our old gears, sprockets, motors, wheels, screws, and rivets into organized, CLEAR, clean kits and bins. We also obtained a rolling shelf that we plan to keep all of our COTS parts for the season on (complete with a part sign in/out sheet). We have another shelf that I am thinking of using to organize all of our fabricated parts in a similar way.

[runneals]

Originally Posted by runneals

In our ME lab on campus, they have a sweet Grainger Cabinet

If you were to take one thing away from this, I would say get a barcode scanner for the things you have limited amounts of and tie it into a google sheet or something similar. This way, everything is tied into a computer because seriously, who will be maintaining the inventory day after day of build season?!? (answer: probably no one) This way you at least are able to keep up in real/near-real time to see what you need to order more of with very little formatting modifications (trust me, we tried doing a paper copy, then replicating it onto google drive, but that is always going to be out of date)