From 800 in 10 Hours to 1,440 in 8: Automating a Fully Manual, High-Compliance Production Line
“This was the most ambitious project we’ve ever executed—and it performed exactly as designed.”
– Steven Coleman / Cofounder and Director of Sales & Tech, Colewell Automation
Challenge:
American Ordnance was running a critical production line almost entirely by hand.
Handling, cleaning, inspection, marking, coating, tracking—nearly every step depended on people moving parts from station to station. The only automated piece in the process was an aging robotic inkjet printer.
Hiring wasn’t easy either. Strict background requirements meant the available labor pool was smaller than most manufacturers face. Finding and keeping qualified operators for repetitive, detailed work became harder each year.
The line was capped at about 800 units per 10-hour shift. Demand was growing, but the process couldn’t scale.
Incremental fixes wouldn’t solve this. American Ordnance needed more output, more consistency, and a more stable process—without depending on an already limited workforce.
Solution:
The project started as a simple inkjet replacement.
But once we saw their operation in person, it was clear that replacing one step wouldn’t remove the bottleneck, so we pitched a fully automated work cell.
Our engineers designed a robotic system that connected every major stage of production—from inbound handling to outbound staging—into one coordinated flow.
At the front end, operators load pallets onto a conveyor. A robot uses vision and laser distance sensors to locate and pick each part. From that point on, every part is tracked through the system using RFID.
The process includes:
Robotic Vision Guided Depalletizing. Custom End of arm tooling with vision is used to pick parts off of the inbound pallets and place them onto our conveyor system.
Lid removal and interior cleaning. A custom end of arm tool removes the lid, and a vacuum system cleans the inside. An operator confirms Quality that it is ready to move onto the next process. At this point if quality is not met the operator would remove the part from the system.
Full exterior inspection. The part is rotated 360 degrees while Keyence Laser profilers map out the entirety of the parts surface to inspect for defects down to the micron level.
Permanent part marking. A pin stamp applies identification before the next steps.
Robotic coating. A paint robot applies a protective coating. Cameras verify that coverage is complete and markings are readable.
Barcode printing and tracking. An inkjet system prints barcodes and readable data. Each step is logged to ensure no operation is skipped or repeated.
Additional corrosion protection. A second robot applies lanolin to the marked surface for extra rust prevention.
Outbound placement. A Vision-guided robot places parts precisely into carts for the next stage of production.
This wasn’t a robot added to a line. It was a complete production redesign.
It’s the largest and most complex system Colewell has delivered to date. It required long nights, detailed testing, and close teamwork. During our dry run, it performed exactly as planned, and we’re excited to take it onsite and get it up and running for our customer.
Results:
This will be a major improvement for our customer.
American Ordnance will be able to increase output from 800 units per 10-hour shift to 1,440 units per 8-hour shift—nearly doubling production.
Automation will reduce pressure on hiring, and the people who operated this line before will be leveraged elsewhere in their facility.
At the same time, the process will become more consistent and easier to track. Every part is logged, verified, and checked multiple times throughout the system. That means fewer errors and stronger quality control.
For Colewell, this project marked a milestone. It proved our team’s ability to design and deliver a large-scale, high-compliance automation system—and set a new benchmark for what we can build in complex manufacturing environments.