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Legoland California has a factory tour which provide a lot of insights into the
production. The video in the waiting lines is long about 15-20 minutes and
has company history, commericals, and factory clips. Inside contains a working
molding machine making 2x4 bricks, a running printing machine for a 1x4x3
panel, a wheel assembly machine and a packing machine. Unfortuately, there is
no bagging machine or video of how its done. I suspect this is a trade secret
and confidental. The entire factory is completely computerized and robotic
and highly automated to run 24 hours a day.
The molding machines runs continous and are lined up in rows and rows (in the
tens) with ABS supplied by suspended overhead pipes connected to large tanks
where pellets are vacuum into tanks. The layout does not suggest that color
supply to a machine is changed. The molds are change. Color change means
molds installed on different color line. The parts from the molding machines
are dumped into large tubs (3 different sizes). When full, the tub is picked
by robots and taken to a wherehouse where its covered, labeled, barcoded,
weighted, and stored in a computerized robotic loading/unloading racks.
Parts orders come in and the tubs are picked and shipped to the bagging lines
which can be anywhere in the world. For example, I believe Technic parts are
mostly made in Switerland.
Feeding parts into a machine for printing, assembly, or bagging is done by
dumping the parts from the tubs into a bin where the parts are aligned in the
proper orientation for processing. The machine that does this looks like
a round bin with ramps along the inside walls. Parts are feed into the
bottom and make their way along the side to the top. Parts not in the
proper alignment fall to the bottom. Again, everything is robotic and
computerized and operate at high speed.
The tour is highly recommended, but the video takes patience to watch
(continous loop).
hope this helps.
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Message is in Reply To:
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| HOW TO DO BULK SALES IN THE 21st CENTURY ~~~...~~~ Be prepared, this is long... I hope you find it is worth reading. I think it is time we stopped guessing what The LEGO Group's real costs are. None of us know; period. Some people with actual TLC (...) (24 years ago, 6-Jul-00, to lugnet.lego.direct, lugnet.general) !
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