Role: Automation Expert
Location
Either Detroit, MI or Kansas City, Kansas (Remote with occasional visits to client site)
Duration: 12 months contract
Objective
Support evaluation of material handling automation, storage strategy, material flow, and warehouse/LOC capacity within an automotive manufacturing environment. The SME will develop practical recommendations regarding AMRs, AGVs, AFTs, ASRS, storage systems, replenishment strategies, and inventory placement under conditions where layouts, PFEP data, and operating assumptions are still evolving.
Responsibilities
- Recommend appropriate material handling technologies, including:
- AMRs
- AGVs
- Autonomous Fork Trucks (AFTs)
- ASRS
- Goods-to-Person Systems
- Automated Conveyance Systems
- Define fleet sizing, storage-density assumptions, throughput assumptions and operating constraints.
- Develop alternative automation concepts and compare operational tradeoffs.
- Recommend physical equipment configurations suitable for simulation and Digital Twin scenario analysis.
Must-Have Experience
10+ years in:
Automotive logistics
In-plant logistics
Material handling equipment automation
ASRS design or evaluation
AMR / AGV deployment projects
Industrial engineering
Experience leading or supporting selection, evaluation, sizing or deployment of material handling automation systems.
Experience comparing alternative automation approaches based on throughput, storage requirements, labor, utilization, and ROI.
Experience with:
- Material handling system selection and evaluation
- Automotive supplier parks, sequencing centers, or 3PL operations
- Comfortable working with incomplete or evolving planning inputs and building defensible recommendations from assumptions.
Preferred Experience:
- ASRS design or evaluation
- AMR / AGV deployment projects
- Warehouse automation business-case development
- Highly automated manufacturing or distribution environments
- Simulation, modeling, or Digital Twin support initiatives
- Process Flows
- Mentor and Knowledge transfer to client project team members
- Participate as primary, co and/or contributing author on any and all project deliverables associated with their assigned areas of responsibility
- Participate in data conversion and data maintenance
- Provide best practice and industry specific solutions
- Advise on and provide alternative (out of the box) solutions
- Provide thought leadership as well as hands on technical configuration/development as needed.
- Participate as a team member of the functional team
- Perform other duties as assigned.