LB Foster Materials Handling completes two contracts for Lear Coventry

Leicester based LB Foster Materials Handling has completed two major contracts at the Lear Corporation seating facility located in Coventry. One contract was for a production line carousel conveyor and the second, for a dispatch conveyor system to store completed car seats in sequence on a cassette.

Lear is one of the world’s leading suppliers of automotive seating and electrical distribution systems. The company’s products are designed, engineered and manufactured by approximately 122,000 employees located in 36 countries.

The new Coventry site was opened in 2013 to support Jaguar Land Rover’s F-type launch.

The rectangular carousel manufactured and installed by LB Foster at the Coventry facility is an indexing conveyor using accumulating chain and powered rollers. It has been constructed so that the operatives working on the carousel can produce 40 car sets of seats per hour. To save energy, the conveyor shuts down between ‘takt’ times.

Once the seats are finished they are placed on a delivery pallet. The pallets are then loaded onto the new dispatch conveyor system. This consists of a series of three, two tier conveyors which house up to 36 car sets in sequence on a cassette.

When the delivery lorry arrives at the dock, the seats are automatically transferred by conveyor out of the building straight onto conveyors in the back of the lorry. They will be delivered, still in sequence, to the automotive manufacturer.

Gary Bale, managing director of LB Foster Materials Handling said, “We are delighted that Lear selected our company to carry out these two engineering contracts for its Coventry site.

“The successful completion of the projects marks a great start to our business relationship with one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers. It also underlines our ability to integrate bespoke systems into complex manufacturing processes.”

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