(Pictured back frow from L-R: Keith Norris, Benny Lares, Bill Robb and Rick Nesbit; front row L-R: Jason Eads, David Forrest and Jimmy Grawe; not pictured, John Washburn)

The Ergo Cup Team from Manchester Tank Quincy (MTQ) won second prize in the 2013 McWane Ergo Cup Competition for their entry of a pneumatic manipulator and end-effector.  The MTQ team designed and installed a special pneumatic lift mechanism to eliminate the need to manually lift a 56 pound head and place it onto a roller conveyor.  The installation of this pneumatic lift significantly reduced the required manual handling process.

The average daily production of this line is 150 tanks per 8 hour shift.  With two lifts per punched head the total pounds manually handled each day by the operator was 16,800 pounds.

Congratulations to the MTQ team for a very innovative entry!