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Aluminium profiles for e-mobility in highest quality

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.

With the investment in a new fully automated production line announced at the beginning of 2018, the HAI Group is consistently pursuing its ambitious growth targets until 2025. Founded in 2007, the family-owned company produces foundry products as well as high-quality aluminium profiles for the mechanical engineering, electrical and automotive industries, among others. The traditional company sees promising growth opportunities in the e-mobility sector in particular. A fully automated high-end production line was installed in a completely new 4,000 m² hall. "Full automation of production is the safest and most gentle solution with regard to damage-free transport," says Dieter Schäfer, Project Manager at Vollert. "The HAI Group therefore also relies on a fully automated intralogistics solution when linking the new and existing production areas".

Floating gently transported

The high-quality aluminium profiles are stacked at HAI in Ranshofen up to a length of 8 m in baskets up to 2 t in weight. Via chain conveyors, they then move from the existing production to a buffer store above the new production line and from there, on call order, to further processing. The connecting element for the gentle material flow is an automatic crane from Vollert with trolley travelling gear and a span width of 15 m. It picks up the baskets from the chain conveyor and stacks up to three baskets, one on top of the other, on a surface of 80 m in length and 15 m in width, on which a maximum of 400 baskets can be placed. The capacity of the interim storage facility thus reaches around 800 t. Before storage, the baskets are automatically measured to prevent damage from misplaced profiles.

The arrangement of the warehouse on a level above production allows the automatic crane free access to the production below. On demand, it provides the required profile baskets for further processing at the work stations at travel speeds up to 1.5 m/s. The control and the warehouse management of the SPS group are connected to the central control system of HAI.

Reduced installation time due to acceptance at the factory

"The cooperation with the colleagues from Hammerer Aluminium Industries was excellent. Thanks to this good cooperation, we were able to achieve the short project time of around 12 months," explains Lars Strobel, Project Manager Sales at Vollert. An important time factor is always the customer acceptance on site. If any changes are made, the assembly may not be completed as planned. Vollert's engineers therefore frequently set up the plants for customer acceptance completely ready for operation in their own production facilities in order to avoid later delays. Then, as with HAI, assembly is possible in the shortest possible time.

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