Press releases

Finnish manufacturer Valtra relies on a clever intralogistics solution for coating tractors. It not only allows chassis weighing up to eight tons to be coated overhead, but also to be buffered in a closed circuit and guided around corners. Two chain pushers in combination with friction wheel drives are used for this purpose. The lean solution guarantees continuous production in automotive eight-minute cycles.

In future, Gränges in Finspång, Sweden, will use a new flat storage facility with an automatic crane from Vollert to organize the entire supply and removal of the new aluminium production area. The warehouse serves as the central interface between the cold rolling mill, the slitter lines and the packaging. Vollert is developing the complete intralogistics system, including coil cooling, inductive transfer cars, an automated guided vehicle (AGV) as well as the control and warehouse management system, and integrating it into an existing hall.

It is certainly one of the most ambitious construction projects in Brazil in recent times. Ecoparque Bairros Integrados is a vision that focuses on sustainable urban development and aims to create affordable, livable housing for millions of Brazilians without neglecting ecological and social aspects. The first residential project of this kind is now being built in Cascavel in the west of the state of Paraná. The first residents are due to move in 2025.

On July 1, 2024, Tobias Zimmer took over the charge of the intralogistics systems division at Vollert Anlagenbau GmbH. With this strategic personnel decision, Vollert is sending a clear signal for further growth in this important product segment.

The Santos export terminal recently started using a PRO DER240 shunting robot to move freight trains weighing up to 3,900 tons. The new addition complements the existing robot fleet on site: A total of seven shunting systems from Vollert now accelerate the low-dust 24/7 unloading of soya, bran and maize in the modernized ship terminals of the two operators TES and ADM.

As a 2nd generation family business, the Austrian construction company Josef Lehner stands for sustainability and foresight. As part of the expansion of its capacities for larger construction projects, the company has now invested in a modern, partially automated double wall production facility at its headquarters in Amstetten.

The seaport operators in Pori, Finland, rely on a radio-controlled shunting solution from Vollert for the rail loading of iron sulphate as bulk goods. A Tandem DER 150 shunting robot provides and moves freight trains weighing up to 2,000 tons. The coupling system is compatible with both Eastern and Central European systems.

For the second time in three years, Vollert's intralogistics specialists have received an order from TBEA to build a fully automated storage and material flow system for steel coils, including a high-bay warehouse. The twin plant for the production of transformer cores in Tianjin, China, is being built in the immediate vicinity of the first production plant. Handling the sensitive steel coils requires sensitive heavy-duty technology and sophisticated storage logic with high structural requirements.

The French construction company Muance, which was only founded in 2020, has set itself the goal of transforming residential construction in France in a sustainable way. The goal: to reduce the overall CO2 footprint by 60%. To achieve this, the company is relying on a new construction system based on industrially prefabricated room modules. This was developed with the aim of minimizing the ecological footprint and at the same time creating affordable living space for many people.

The heavy-duty specialist Vollert from Weinsberg, Germany, is supporting the agricultural machinery manufacturer JACTO in Brazil with the construction of a new combined powder and wet paint coating system. Large parts up to 10 m long, 2.5 m high and weighing 4 tons are coated, including for large coffee and sugar cane harvesters as well as planting and fertilizing machines. To speed up the time-consuming dip coating process, product carriers can be combined for smaller workpieces and separated again for larger workpieces.

Steffen Schmitt has been in charge of the precast concrete plants division at Vollert Anlagenbau GmbH since December 2023. As an experienced sales expert, he brings many years of expertise from numerous successful plant projects in Asia and Europe to his new role.

Vollert Anlagenbau, intralogistics specialist for the global aluminum industry, is developing a comprehensive intralogistics system with a high-bay warehouse and various transport systems for supply and removal in the warm and cold rolling areas for Logan Aluminum. The high-bay warehouse serves as the interface between the rolling mills at the site in Russellville, Kentucky, USA. At a height of 42 m and a payload of up to 30 tons, it contains the largest stacker cranes ever built by Vollert.

Ensinger, a specialist for high-performance plastics, is meeting its customers’ high demands with far-sightedness and future-oriented planning. With a view to future production increases, the manufacturer used a digital twin to analyze its production sequences for weaknesses and develop modular solutions together with retrofitting specialist Vollert, to be gradually integrated into the existing production until 2027. This provides planning safety for investment costs and guaranteed delivery capacity at any time.

Austrian building company HABAU GROUP invested 11 million euros into expansion of its hollow-core slab production in its Perg factory site, increasing capacity by nearly 30% per annum. Just like the entire preliminary planning of their new plant technology, loading and removal processes also rely on sustainable technology, such as an emission-free road-rail vehicle.

Five new tandem shunting robots by Vollert automate and accelerate train loading in the Bogatyr open-cast coal mine in Kazakhstan. The Wi-Fi-controlled shunting machines move trains with lengths of about a kilometer and a total weight of up to 6,900 tons. Their rolling use warrants failsafe operation on four tracks in parallel around the clock.

The Weinsberg-based plant manufacturer Vollert is reorganizing its management structure as of July 1, 2023. In addition to Managing Partner Hans-Jörg Vollert, Wolfram Hietschold and Andreas Gebhart will form the Executive Board in future.

Two automated Vollert loading cranes ensure quick unloading of vehicle batteries for e-car production from trains at ŠKODA’s headquarters in Czech Mladá Boleslav. Automation reduces lading times while increasing safety in handling of sensitive batteries.

SEW-Eurodrive delivered its two millionth DRN motor in Germany to Vollert in May. These IE3 motors have already achieved energy savings in excess of 50,000 GWh world-wide.

Vollert developed a particularly space-efficient paint shop on two levels for machine and plant constructor KraussMaffei. The workpieces are moving on a crane track at a height of twelve metres. The walk-on painting and working area for the workers is located six metres high on the first floor, and the space underneath can be fully used – protected by a rock-solid fall protection for large parts with weights of up to 30 tons.

Vollert India Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Vollert Group, is expanding its commitment in Sikandrabad near the Indian capital city of New-Delhi, increasing its production capacities for machines and components for the precast concrete industry to cover the soaring demand of the quickly growing Indian infrastructure sector.

Bernegger Group has a tradition of always thinking one step ahead – be it in the raw materials industry, the construction industry, or in environmental technology. The same is true as it enters the precast concrete industry. Since May 2022, double walls and prefabricated ceiling slabs for residential and commercial construction have been produced perfectly energy-neutrally in Dietach, Upper Austria.

SWISS KRONO is accelerating picking for innovative countertops and melamine-coated wood panels for furniture production and interior fittings with a heavy-duty high-bay warehouse by Vollert. All wood formats required for picking will be provided in only two minutes.

Stones, walls, and paving systems with high aesthetic value make landscaping distinctive for use in house and garden or in modern urban and commercial construction alike. Many building material manufacturers are already offering a high-quality and diverse range of concrete blocks. Formwork systems afford an interesting alternative for the production of L-bricks.

Whether concrete products for gardening and landscaping or walls, beams and columns - the traditional company UNGLEHRT has been producing high-quality concrete parts for more than 100 years and also specializes in turnkey commercial and industrial construction. In order to further increase competitiveness and also to have answers to the increasing shortage of skilled manpower, the company has now invested in an automation of the existing precast concrete parts production at the plant location in Bad Grönenbach, Bavaria.

Instead of stationary stair formwork, the French building materials manufacturer Soriba is relying for the first time on a rationalized and automated staircase production in a circulation-based manufacturing process. Movable side rails makes this possible despite the high diversity of stair variants. A new type of rotating-turning operation also brings considerable savings in steel and concrete consumption. The entire manufacturing process is thus optimized in terms of time, costs and CO2.

Vollert designed a fully automated intralogistics system for the flexible packaging specialist Aluflexpack (AFP) in their production plant in Drniš near Split in Croatia. In addition to a high-bay warehouse with a special treatment zone, the material flow concept for several hundred coils includes the complete automated transport of the very heavy aluminum coils of different lengths and diameters.

Shunting expert Vollert deploys its VLEX robot vehicle for rail and road at Fret SNCF's maintenance site in Modane. The compact road-rail robot moves locomotives weighing up to 120 tons effortlessly into their maintenance boxes.

At bauma 2022 in Munich, Vollert will present the latest machine technology for modern precast concrete production from October 24 to 30 (Hall B1, Booth 225). The focus will also be on the megatrends of digitalization as well as new construction systems and production-side CO2 savings potential. In addition, visitors can discover 360° live on site the latest plant concepts in 3D.

Heavy masses and efficient bulk material loading without endangering people – the transport of scrap and metal presents many challenges. The shunting specialists from Vollert meet this requirement with the robustly designed shunting vehicle for road and rail. VLEX 40 and VLEX 20, the compact product lines equipped with articulated steering are used at ESF Elbe-Stahlwerke Feralpi GmbH in Riesa and at VDM Metals in Unna.

In the Iberian Peninsula, the share of industrial construction is less than 1%, compared to 45% in Central and Northern Europe in 2020. Against this background, Grupo Avintia, one of Spain's leading developers, has developed ÁVIT-A, an integral, industrialized construction system. Climate neutrality in the building process and sustainability in the housing sector are decisive milestones in 21st century.

Planchers Fabre, a subsidiary of the Rector Lesage Group, produces a wide range of beam and wall elements for the construction industry. In Pibrac in the southwest of France near Toulouse, the company has now expanded its industrial prefabrication for higher plant production capacities due to increasing demand.

Modern concrete spreaders increase plant productivity in precast concrete plants through precise and fast travel paths and optimized concrete discharge. At the same time, they are an essential quality factor for the produced walls and slabs. In order to extend the lifetime cycles of the machine components used, Vollert, the specialist in plant engineering, now relies on new materials.

Vladivostok is around 6,500 km from Moscow as the crow flies, Russia's gateway to the Pacific and an important hub on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Nevertheless, the development of population density in the Primorye region on the Sea of Japan is declining. Creating attractive housing is one of the state's main goals to counteract this. Support programmes and new housing projects by construction developers such as DNS-Development are an important first step.

For a new transformer core production plant in northern China, intralogistics specialist Vollert is developing and supplying a complete, fully automated high-bay warehouse with 1,500 cantilever arms for coils weighing up to 5 tons. Despite the load weighing tons, the entire intralogistics system must handle the sensitive foil material extremely gently.

On May 29, 2021, the new metro station 'November 8' was officially opened in Baku by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. This is another milestone for Baku Metropolitan, as the 26th metro station in the Nasimi district as a junction of metro lines 3 and 4 plays a central role in connecting the city center to the metro network. At the same time, several sections of the metro network were equipped with the Vollert-Rheda system.

Cities and communities in the Heilbronn region were able to present themselves at the Federal Horticultural Show 2020 with a special advertising sign. At the site „Grasiger Hag“ in Weinsberg with a view of the historical castle ruin Weibertreu, this sign has now been firmly installed.

At the Liebherr plant in Ehingen, Vollert planned and built a new ballast painting plant with friction wheel and rope conveyor technology for the coating of crane ballast elements. These are used as counterweights for mobile lattice boom and telescopic cranes with lifting heights of up to 245 m. Depending on the product carrier, elements weighing up to 20 tons can be coated in an overhead, suspended manner. A total of 25 product carriers are in circulation.

A new stacker crane for 11-ton aluminum coils and a modern automatic crane system for extruded profiles have been speeding up the production processes of Hydro Aluminium Rolled Products and Neuman Aluminium since the beginning of the year. For the replacement of the central conveyor systems, two Vollert teams took advantage of the short production-free period over Christmas. With foresighted planning, they mastered the complex tasks even in the tightest of spaces and under tightened pandemic conditions.

Kazakhstan is one of the world's richest countries in raw materials. Large oil and natural gas fields are located around the Caspian Sea. As an emerging market with average economic growth of almost 10% (since 1999), Kazakhstan stands out in Central Asia. The economic development is also fueling a construction boom. In the metropolises, the demand for real estate is unbroken. In the middle of it all is a hidden champion: Bolashak-T. Since 2014, a new construction system has been changing the face of Kazakhstan's cities.

The agricultural group Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) relies on two cable-powered shunting robots STANDARD KR 70 and two diesel-electric shunting robots PRO DER 240 from the German shunting specialist Vollert for handling soy and corn at its modernized shipping terminal in Santos, Brazil. In perfect interplay, the shunting machines handle the shunting of freight trains weighing up to 3,900 t in 24-hour operation.

Affordable living space, new architecture highlights, and high earthquake-resilience – the MOTUS construction system combines multiple advantages in one. In addition to solid and sandwich walls, in particular 3-dimensional hollow-core slabs in a variety of design types are the main feature of the new system structure. Uzbek construction company EGI relies on automated manufacturing processes and the know-how of German plant specialist Vollert in its construction system and industrial pre-production.

The employees of the machine and plant manufacturer Vollert situated in Weinsberg made to the clinical center of Weissenhof a generous donation of 1,150 euros in favor of the renovation of the water playground of the Clinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy.

The Thai construction industry has grown rapidly over the last 20 years. Even though Covid-19 has slowed down the growth, the boom continues, especially around the megacity Bangkok. A pioneer in the industrial pre-production of precast concrete elements in Thailand is DSC Product. At the beginning of 2020, the company expanded its building materials portfolio to include prefabricated solid walls.

Based on a 5D-BIM solution and the highly automated industrial production of precast concrete elements, MyHome Group is accelerating the development of the trillion blue ocean market for prefabricated buildings in China. Shear walls and floor slabs are to create new affordable living space for the emerging region. In Jingzhou, in the south of Hubei Province, a mega precast concrete plant for the 21st century has now been built. The plant concept resembles a butterfly with two strong wings.

Kerkstoel 2000+ and Vollert in cooperation with Prilhofer Consulting are currently setting a highlight in the industrial series production of architecturally sophisticated precast concrete parts in Belgium. Various precast concrete elements of the Kerkstoel Group can be found in modern residential and office complexes, but also in shopping centres, railway stations and airports. In order to continue setting trends, the Belgian building materials specialist invested in a new production plant for solid, double and sandwich walls in Grobbendonk for versatile component geometries and customer designs. This allows concrete elements with very different degrees of complexity to be produced in the same period of time without reducing plant productivity.

For almost 100 years we have been your strong and reliable supplier of systems and machinery. The success of our customers and partners was and is firmly anchored in our corporate philosophy. However, how life has changed in the last few weeks presents you and us with challenges unknown today. In view of the worldwide Covid 19 pandemic, we are monitoring the situation on a daily basis. We have to keep our distance, but we still want to keep in touch with you.

With a new model of the road-rail robot VLEX, Vollert extends its compact solution to shunting operations up to 600 tons. Twice as strong, but only 500 mm larger, the new VLEX 40 is also suitable for fast track changes in confined spaces. A swing axle guarantees permanent ground or rail contact of all four wheels, even on uneven ground. And thanks to the emission-free electric drive, operation in closed storage and production areas is also possible. The extremely maneuverable shunting solution of the VLEX 20 is used, for example, in the South Korean metro in Seoul, for moving tank wagons at Lanxess in Leverkusen or for loading lime at Rheinkalk Grevenbrück GmbH.

Starworth is one of the fastest growing construction companies in India with 18 residential projects and more than 15 years of expertise. The Provident Park Square construction project in Bangalore is now the first to rely entirely on precast concrete elements as a construction system. From October 2021, the new owners will be offered architecture and luxury in a unique residential environment.

Modern architecture and new building systems create affordable housing for many people in Africa. At the same time, it will become an important job machine for many countries. To this end, the German concrete plant specialist Vollert is now starting a cooperation with the Technical University of Kenya in Nairobi.

Modern precast architecture is rapidly changing the faces of Asia's megacities. Gamuda IBS is currently setting a highlight in system construction in Malaysia. With the Industrialized Building System (IBS), up to 50-story residential buildings will be possible in the future - in only two thirds of the time to date. The Malaysian construction specialist in Banting is currently expanding its capacities for this purpose.

On the night of Monday, 25 November, two DER 240 shunting locomotives - each weighing around 100 tonnes – hit the road from Weinsberg to South America.

The Weinsberger plant manufacturer Vollert is repositioning itself with a new management structure as of November 1, 2019. In addition to the managing partner Hans-Jörg Vollert, Björn Brandt, Wolfram Hietschold and Oliver Wolschinski will form the management board.

At its headquarters in Hagen-Hohenlimburg, the BILSTEIN GROUP invested in a wide quarto reversing rolling mill and a new slitting line with a fully automated buffer store for steel coils with a width of up to 1,350 mm and a weight of up to 31 tonnes. For direct access, these are stored hanging from cantilevers. A fully automatic stacker crane from Vollert ensures smooth storage and retrieval.

In a comprehensive retrofit project, the intralogistics specialists from Vollert modernized the complete conveyor technology of an existing large parts painting plant for the injection moulding machine manufacturer Arburg. While retaining the existing crane runway and painting technology, the processes were accelerated, the painting processes improved and automated and extended parts of the plant technology were added.

Since 2009, the Hungarian Limelog Group has specialised in the transport of high-quality building materials, grain and oversized machines and precast concrete parts inside and outside of Hungary. Since 2011, the company has also been extremely successful in producing reinforced concrete columns and beams. With KOMBISTEP stair formwork and high-performance tilting tables from Vollert's special portfolio, the company is now expanding its stationary precast concrete production.

New terminals on the island of Krievu in Latvia form the modern infrastructure for loading coal in the port of Riga. Vollert supplied a DER 100 shunting robot to the terminal operator SIA STREK.

Vollert erects a new material flow system with high-bay warehouse. It is already the fourth warehouse of the intralogistics specialist at the Mercedes-Benz press shop in Bremen. At the same time, Vollert increased the overall speed of the existing intralogistics processes.

The Belgian building materials specialist Daerden is expanding its capacity in the production of serially prefabricated semi-finished concrete parts. Just-in-time within 24 hours, it will in future be possible to supply its customers in the booming Belgian housing industry with floor slabs. Automated processes and Vollert technology make this possible.

In the quarry of the French building materials specialist Eqiom in the Bar-sur-Aube district, an energy-efficient fully automatic loading station ensures economical processes. For loading gravel, the wagons are constantly pulled through the filling station by an electrically operated KR 100 shunting robot.

Hammerer Aluminium Industries (HAI) is investing in a high-end production line at its Austrian site in Ranshofen. The aim is to produce aluminium profiles of the highest quality for the future topic of e-mobility. With an automatic crane and a fully automated buffer store, the SPS Group and Vollert ensure damage-free material flow between the existing and extended production lines. From planning to commissioning, the intralogistics specialists needed only 12 months.

Finnish building materials specialist Rakenusbetoni- ja Elementti expands its capacities in production of serially pre-fabricated bathroom modules. High-performance room mould by concrete specialist Vollert ensure high-quality surfaces and watertight room cells. The bathroom installation takes place very quickly, since the electrical and sanitary devices are already pre-installed.

At bauma 2019 in Munich from 8 to 14 April (hall B1, stand 311), Vollert will be presenting the latest machine concepts for modern precast concrete production. The centerpiece of exhibits is an innovative manufacturing process for prestressed, earthquake-resistant, hollow-core slabs. In addition, visitors will be able to immerse themselves on the spot in 360° virtual tours of current plant projects in Europe and Asia and learn more about the latest trends in production control systems.

3D printers have become indispensable in industry, model making and research. They allow for creating models, samples, proto-types, tools and end products layer by layer in the shortest possi-ble time. The students of the Justinus-Kerner Gymnasium in Weinsberg recently started performing three-dimensional experi-ments while gathering important skills in the new technology.

Contemporary architecture defines the cityscape of Tashkent today. Construction boom and the demand for new housing continue unabated. However, Uzbekistan is located within a zone of high seismic activity and thus, earthquake safety is key here. DSK Binokor has recently developed a novel construction system and with it, innovative architecture for buildings becomes feasible.

Truck trailers are useful, but also big and heavy. This does not make their transport in the paint shop easy. Giga Coating GmbH recently built a completely new surface treatment plant in Twist. Here, up to 15.7 m long and 9 t heavy large parts are not only coated, but also blasted, dipped, swiveled and heat treated in hanging furnaces. The automated circulation principle creates capacities for up to 100 trailers and special parts per day in two construction stages.

Forms, colours and surfaces become more and more modern; architecture turns increasingly diverse. At the same time, the capacities needed for building projects increase and the cost pressure is rising. The machine technology in precast concrete production must follow this trend. Modernisation is key in the Oschatz concrete plant.

Vollert currently delivers a total of 11 fully automated cranes to the mega rolling plant project of the Chinese Zhongwang Group. The manipulators link area storages, furnaces, warm and cold rolling, and transport up to 33 t of heavy ingots and coils with a four-fold step speed (4 m/s). For the LogiMAT 2019, the intralogistics specialist presents these and other special crane systems for loads of up to 100 tonnes.

For its new factory, Benninghoven, specialists in the construction of asphalt mixing plants up to 50 m in height and a member of the Wirtgen Group, is investing in a new double-track suspension system from Vollert for the overhead surface treatment of large parts. The special drive concept allows the overhead and flexible transport of up to 22 ton heavy parts, while at the same time enabling the energy-efficient separation of transport and furnace steel structures. Besides Benninghoven, in the company group Wirtgen and Kleemann are already using the proven Vollert technology.

Innofreight Solutions GmbH from Austria has developed an innovative unloading station for the paper and packaging specialist, Mondi. As with voestalpine in Donawitz and at the Chvaletice power plant, Vollert's robust and energy-efficient shunting technology ensures reliable processes.

The Polish building materials manufacturer Uciechowski will in future be producing floor beams and slabs on an industrial scale using the TERIVA building system. Whereas manufacturing was previously purely stationary, it is now based on the latest technology of the concrete plant specialist Vollert. 50 shuttering pallets are transported in the circulation system, known up to now only in modern precast concrete plants.

The Brazilian manufacturer Randon has built a 500m long combined welding, painting and assembly line for trailers and railway wagons in the state of São Paolo. Vollert has developed a heavy-duty material flow concept consisting of 13 combined rope conveyor drives, two moving distribution transfer platforms and the control system for the individually timed forward feed.

Vollert erected for Saarstahl AG a new fully automatic high-bay warehouse for up to 665 steel wire coils at the Neunkirchen plant. In addition to the high cycle time of just 190 seconds per double cycle, the heavy-duty engineers also realized the handling of bundles weighing up to 4.5 tons directly from the stacker crane to the lift truck and on to the truck loading.

The Chinese Baoye Group has built yet another precast concrete plant in Quzhou, 800 km southwest of Shanghai. Baoye will produce double walls and floor slabs of up to 700,000 square meters per year for mega-residential projects. At the heart is the latest plant technology from Vollert, a concrete plant specialist, while the focus is put on China’s hot topics, resource efficiency and environmental protection and prefab architecture as a sustainable building system.

Neuman Aluminum modernized their material flows in the extrusion plant in Marktl, Austria, during the Christmas holidays. At the core is a new automatic crane system by Vollert with 21 interchangeable cycles for loads of up to 3 tons. It replaces two existing transport cranes and is one of the fastest automatic cranes ever used in the extrusion industry.

For LEWA as a special pump manufacturer and HAMM as a manufacturer of rollers for road construction and earthworks, Vollert developed and installed new floor-guided and overhead material flow systems for surface coating of parts weighing up to 12 tons. While high cycle times are crucial at HAMM, at LEWA for the first-time workpieces weighing tons travel 90° around the corner and thus enable an extremely compact system layout.

The Brazilian MARNA Pré-fabricados Group has continuously concentrated on precast element architecture since 2008. The stair production has now been extensively modernized with a VARIOSTEP stair mould 170-17 from Vollert's special product range.

Precast architecture is modern and different. Numerous building projects worldwide prove that. It now has very little to do with standards and norms. One of the long-standing leaders among the manufacturers of such precast elements is the concrete specialist bétons feidt from Luxembourg. Vollert technology plays a big part in this.

Pathfinder Systems, a new agency for the precast concrete industry, is now in charge of the US market.

Nuspl Schalungsbau and Vollert Anlagenbau will pool their expertise much more in the future. Nuspl Schalungsbau GmbH + Co. KG, part of the Vollert Group since 2012, has been fully integrated into the Vollert Anlagenbau GmbH as of October 1, 2017, including the complete range of formwork products. In the near future also customer care, development and production will be housed under one roof at the headquarters of Vollert in Weinsberg.

Experience says otherwise - and yet, here is the fact: The 1,000-meter-long special ropes used in the two shunting systems with standard gauge pusher trucks from Vollert at the Russian refinery Slavneft-Yanos have done their job for 13 years - in spite of almost non-stop use and extreme temperature differences.

With the newly developed VLEX road-rail robot, Vollert offers the finest solution for light shunting operation up to 300 tons: Extremely compact and flexible, battery-driven and exhaust-free, the small VLEX is suitable to change tracks fast in a very confined space.

With a retrofit and thorough automation concept, MKM Mansfelder Kupfer und Messing GmbH in Hettstedt is streamlining its internal storage logistics. The special feature: A floor-free, ceiling-guided warehouse handling machine with telescopic column takes care of moving the wire coils, which weigh up to 6 metric tons (6.6 US tons), in and out of storage. Instead of an exchange, the almost 20-year-old device was overhauled and modernized so that it now takes over the processes fully automatically. The most modern control software ensures fluid, rounded and thus low-strain motion cycles.

Thailand has undergone a rapid economic boom since the 1970s. This path was traversed in a very much shorter period than, for example, in Taiwan or South Korea. Despite the current political instability and only 5% growth, the expansion of the industrial sector continues to be promoted; alongside tourism it accounts for 45% of the gross national product. Therefore, investment is being made in the development of the infrastructure. Several large railway construction projects are planned in the next 5 years in order to network Thailand’s big cities with the less developed rural areas. The STRABAG Group will supply a major part of the equipment for the rail network.

The system technology of many precast concrete element factories comes from the 1990s and is based on the standard of knowledge of the then relatively young field of prefabricated elements. Today, rising cost pressure and ever more versatile prefabricated element architecture with regard to forms, colors and surface qualities require new technology standards. The manufacturers of precast concrete elements are reacting to this demand and investing in machine technology and higher automation.

TRIMET Aluminium SE uses a new and so far unique in the world technique for the cooling of green anodes in its Hamburg factory: The pilot plant reduces the resource usage and dispenses with active cooling by water. Instead TRIMET relies on cooling by natural convection with outside air – and this with success.

The plant specialist Vollert is implementing a new concrete sleeper production plant in Baku. In conjunction with this, apart from development services for the modern plant technology, the company is also providing extensive engineering services for the planning and realisation of the track system for the Azerbaijanian capital's underground railway. The Weinsberg-based mechanical engineering company is offering this service as engineering partner and general contractor.

The face of Tashkent as the capital of Uzbekistan is subject to constant change. The city with more than 2 million inhabitants has been the political, cultural as well as the economic center of the former Soviet state since the 1990s. New residential buildings are constructed as quickly as modern shopping malls, hospitals and universities – those projects are subject to precast architecture, also due to their high earthquake resistance.

Bangalore’s Sobha Ltd. is among the fastest-growing backward integrated property developers in India with more than 360 construction projects completed. In 2015 Sobha set the next milestone in the company‘s history with the installation of the largest onsite precast plant in India in Bangalore with German technology by Vollert. The residential construction project Sobha Dream Acres is now the first construction project implemented that is fully based on prefabricated elements.

Precast construction technology has a long tradition of nearly 60 years in China. The boom was brought to a sudden stop in the 1990s, however, by a lack of state subsidies and components of inferior quality. This has changed today, with state-of-the-art precast architecture, the importance of environmental and resource protection, as well as new industrialised manufacturing methods. Chinese builders such as Shanghai Baoye group invest in state-of-the-art machinery and plant technology.

Belgian Cordeel Group is a nationally leading construction company. The general contractor implements diverse building projects, from exclusive apartment facilities to logistics or industrial parks, modern shopping malls, hospitals, schools or infrastructure projects such as bridges. With the new precast concrete plant in Temse, Cordeel has finally become one of the large key players in Europe.

A newly developed precast construction system has now conquered Chile. In addition to seismic stability, it offers shorter construction times and higher building quality. Serial production of the new house type has started.

Low-loader manufacturer Faymonville dispatches components weighing up to 12 tons through its overhead painting plant in Luxembourg. The material flow concept also comes from a heavy load expert – from Vollert based in Weinsberg. The control system supports automatic operation as well as the manual transportation of parts. Friction wheels facilitate the space-saving plant layout.

Since the 1970s, Thailand has experienced a rapid economic boom. This path was cut in a much shorter period of time than in other countries like Taiwan or South Korea. And in spite of current political instability, the demand for real estate in the cities remains uninterrupted. Furthermore, rural regions are also being increasingly utilised for low-cost living space. The national construction industry in Thailand has recognised this and continues to invest in the most modern technology for precast concrete production, including the SCG Group.

Whether hot, sensitive, uneven or weighing several tonnes - the automatic cranes in the new mega-rolling plants of the Zhongwang Group in Tianjin now move slabs and coils securely and around four times as fast as conventional systems. The technology, control and stores management for this has all come from the intralogistics experts Vollert in the south of Germany.

For the retrofitting of a twelve-aisle fully automated high-bay warehouse at Mercedes-Benz in Sindelfingen, Vollert deliveres twelve stacker cranes, aisle equipment, conveyor equipment, safety, process control technology as well as electronics and the steel construction for the pre-zone. The exchange is made during on-going production over four construction phases. The existing storage system as well as the building itself remains unchanged.

In future M3SP will produce up to 400,000 m² of solid concrete elements annually for the Brazilian market. One of the most modern precast plants in South America has been built for this in Cotia near São Paulo.

With an area of 2,724,900 km², Kazakhstan is the ninth-largest country in the world. As a developing country with average economic growth of nearly 10 % (since 1999), Kazakhstan excels in central Asia and leaves most other countries in this region far behind. The economic development is also stimulating the building boom. The demand for property in the large cities has not let up in the last ten years and continues to develop progressively. This is simultaneously accompanied by the cost-effective production of precast concrete elements.

With average temperatures of between 20 and 30 °C as well as fantastic beaches and diving areas, New Caledonia - the French archipelago in the South Pacific, situated 2,000 km east of the Australian coast - is one of the most popular holiday destinations worldwide. The 250,000 inhabitants live predominantly from tourism and the mining industry. The focus is placed on precast construction for the development of new buildings for residential areas and public institutions as well as new tourism projects. Architecturally appealing houses and multi-storey residential buildings are to be built as well as hospitals, schools, complete hotel complexes and industrial workshops. The precast plant of the New Caledonian LBDP Group, completed in April 2014, will in future produce floor slabs and double and sandwich walls as well as beams and columns for hall buildings.

High-speed routes exceeding 200 km/h and higher axle loads place an enormous amount of stress on the permanent ways of railway lines. Prestressed concrete sleepers for track systems are therefore increasingly replacing the steel or timber sleepers in rail networks. They are more durable, require less maintenance and are also environmentally friendlier since no creosote is required for impregnation. In order to cover the rising demands of the industry and the public authorities, building material manufacturers and building contractors are increasingly investing in modern production plants. The GIC Group is also doing so at its headquarters in Monterrey, Mexico.

Aleris International, Inc. plans to boost production capacity in Duffel, Belgium with a new Sexto mill. To ensure smooth operation, Vollert Anlagenbau from Weinsberg will provide a fully-automated intralogistics system with high-bay warehouse. Up to 32 coils with a maximum unit weight of 25 tons are moved in and out of the warehouse each hour.

In the new Siemens AG Austria coating center, metros and passenger carriages are automatically transported via a central transport system to the individual coating treatment booths. The transfer table allows for flexible arrangement of individual processing stations and offers the highest level of safety for crossing passenger traffic.

Anything but small, the exchangeable pavement cassettes used in the world's first fully climatized indoor tire testing facility from Continental weigh more than 100 tons and measure 75 meters in length. The facility allows the tire manufacturer to conduct 100,000 dry and wet brake tests per year using up to five different sections of test pavement. Vollert developed the system that quickly changes the cassettes.

The Indian construction company Precast India Infrastructures Pvt Ltd. has responded to the high demand from the local construction industry for solid walls, solid floors and floor slabs by opening a new production plant. The state-of-the-art pallet circulation system in the city of Pune in Western India is designed for an hourly production capacity of up to 120 m² precast concrete parts. The production technology was supplied by the plant engineering specialist Vollert Anlagenbau from Germany. The plant has been planned to cater for further expansion at a later date, with the addition of further product lines such as double walls.

Hydro Aluminium Rolled Products GmbH has commissioned Vollert Anlagenbau to modernise its existing plant in Grevenbroich by designing an end-to-end intralogistics system that automatically loads and unloads lorries, stores up to 4,000 tons of aluminium coil, and uses trolleys with inductive power transfer.

Battery-powered, emissions-free transporters that operate without a driver are being used for the first time at HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA). To quickly and frequently exchange the batteries in the onboard battery boxes, which can weigh up to 12 tons, Vollert Anlagenbau developed a fully automated handling station in close collaboration with Gottwald Port Technology GmbH.

heroal's new high-bay warehouse has the capacity for 10,000 long items and 7,000 euro pallets. A centrally controlled intralogistics system from Vollert ensures a smooth material flow between infeed and outfeed.

One of the most advanced mould circuits for railway sleepers has initiated its operations in the Turkish Afyon. In the future Inkol Insaat will produce 450.000 pre-stressed concrete sleepers per year in a 2-shift operation. Vollert Anlagenbau, the specialist in precast concrete works, has been responsible for the know-how and the technology in developing the plant within six months after the contract was signed.

The Tikhvin Railway Car Building Plant (TVSZ) is currently building a state-of-the-art plant for assembling open- and closed-top freight carriages in the Russian town of Tikhvin. To this end, Vollert Anlagenbau from Weinsberg was commissioned to manufacture four transfer cars with payloads of between 70 and 100 tons. A heated enclosure installed on top of the cars provides optimal protection against the elements.

A 260-ton automatic crane is the latest highlight in Vollert's intralogistics programme for heavy-duty applications. Capable of travelling up to 2.7 m/s and featuring a 44-m span width, the crane has a 35-ton payload and will be used to transport heavy objects on site at the customer's steel tube plant in Düsseldorf-Rath. The world's market leader manufacturers steel tubes for applications in oil and gas fields, power plants, and the chemical and petrochemical industry.

The SEW-EURODRIVE drive automation system by Bruchsal relies on a simple, flexible material flow system by Vollert Anlagenbau for coating large gearbox units weighing up to 3.5 tons. It combines the advantages of Power&Free systems and requires significantly fewer system components. Nevertheless, comparably high cycle times are possible.

Liebherr breaks new ground with a new large-scale paint shop for hydraulic excavators: The components, weighing up to twenty tons, are conveyed through the system on a guided track while freely suspended. A special drive solution ensures optimal protection against explosion in the painting and drying booths.

F. X. Meiller Fahrzeug- & Maschinenfabrik commissioned its new facilities for coating large items in early July. Two 70 m-long painting tunnels installed in parallel offer space for 14 stations and can each take up to 12 items weighing 8 tons apiece. Two chain conveyor systems from Vollert provide the required pulling force.

At Wirtgen GmbH in Windhagen, world market leaders in the field of cold milling for road construction, components weighing up to 30 tons are freely suspended. The steel construction of the 230 °C furnaces is completely separated from the transport steel construction to protect against energy losses. This is made possible by special drive technology. Even with the heaviest loads, it allows for gap bridging of 70 cm. In addition, it is wear and explosion proof. The system was designed by Vollert Anlagenbau in Weinsberg.

South Korean bottler Login Beverage commissioned Vollert Anlagenbau to deliver a semi-automatic loading station for trucks. The special-purpose loader can move up to 180 pallets carrying 10,000 beverage crates per hour and does the work of three forklift trucks. Twenty different types of truck are serviced.

Schletter GmbH, the largest supplier of solar mounting systems in Europe, has commissioned Vollert Anlagenbau to design a custom manipulator with three hoisters that can work together or separately to lift profiles weighing up to 9 tons with a maximum length of 18 metres. The manipulator will be used in a new buffer warehouse and is extremely compact to ensure optimal utilisation of vertical space.

With a new painting plant, Liebherr is setting the standard in commercial vehicle construction. At the plant in Ehingen, parts from mobile and crawler cranes weighing up to 50 tons will be painted while suspended in mid-air. Vollert Anlagenbau from Weinsberg is developing the intralogistics for this. Wirtgen and SEW-EURODRIVE are just two of the companies also backing the new technology.

The steel manufacturer SSAB in Oxelösund produces steel plates in one minute tact cycle. The information which plate comes next for what customer is only available three minutes prior to the production exit, thus the intralogistics system must react with appropriate speed. The solution supplied by the Vollert plant engineering company from Weinsberg, is achieved by conversion from a surface warehouse to a high-bay warehouse system with two MEGA AS/RS that enable short cycle times despite loads of tonnages.

Vollert Anlagenbau GmbH from Weinsberg, Germany, is developing an entire intralogistic system with a fully automated high-bay warehouse for Asia’s leading aluminium foil manufacturer. The contract from China, with a total volume of approximately thirteen million Euro, is no easy task: The warehouse, which has a capacity of around 14,000 tons, is located in one of the most dangerous earthquake regions in the world and must withstand seismic shocks which measure up to 5 and 6 on the Richter scale. With the new production plant, Xiashun is in a position to manufacture litho material of the highest quality.

Two stacker cranes in a high-bay racking warehouse supplied by Vollert Anlagenbau of Weinsberg ensure a fresh supply of new cars every day at the new BMW Welt in Munich. The short-stay warehouse provides 284 storage positions on four levels and is located 12 metres deep down in the belly of the huge delivery hall. From here, the cars are moved fully automatically to the so-called Premiere Arena – the centrepiece of BMW Welt – for presentation and collection.

When others are running out of steam, the engineers at Vollert Anlagenbau are just getting into their stride, specialising in intralogistics systems for heavy goods – especially for the metalworking industry. For the aluminium extrusion works of apt Hiller for example, Vollert developed a fully automated intralogistics system which facilitates an end-to-end material flow from the extrusion works to the processing department and then on to the downstream anodising plant and newly constructed shipping warehouse. Major parts of the new system were installed and existing systems modernised and integrated while production was ongoing. As well as a higher handling capacity, the virtual warehouse of the transport control system allows optimum utilisation of the space offered by in-process stores, even with different sizes of transport basket.