Patent ID: 8108989

Claim:
A manufacturing cell comprising: a main aisle; a plurality of stations arranged in two rows such that said main aisle passes between said two rows, each of said plurality of stations has a station-aisle interface that provides an interface area to said main aisle and is configured such that a corresponding station operator is capable of performing a predefined function associated with said manufacturing cell at a station work area; a plurality of storage units located within said cell along said main aisle, each storage unit dimensioned to store at least one container that holds one or more components associated with work flowing through said cell; and a guided forklift truck that traverses said main aisle without requiring steering control of a stock handler operating said forklift truck to relocate containers from said storage units to designated ones of said station-aisle interfaces to trigger inbound workflows to corresponding ones of said plurality of stations, and to remove containers from said designated ones of said plurality of station-aisle interfaces when work is completed at said corresponding ones of said plurality of stations, wherein at least one of said plurality of stations comprises: two conveyors, each having an end proximate to said station-aisle interface, wherein each conveyor has a platform that is tiltable such that when said conveyor is tilted in a first position, a container delivered by said forklift truck from said aisle to said platform is biased by gravity to move toward said station work area; and when said conveyor is tilted to a second position, a container delivered from said station work area to said platform is biased by gravity to move toward said aisle for pickup by said forklift truck so that each of said two conveyors can be used to receive and return containers between said station work area and the station-aisle interface.