By hand, guided or automatic?
Between the person carrying a load and the robot moving it alone lies a wide field. Most workplaces in manufacturing sit right there. This page sorts the terms of material flow accordingly.
- Technical terms
- 19
- Guides
- 4
Whether a handling task is automated is rarely decided by weight. It is decided by the quantity per variant, the position of the parts and whether the gripper can grasp every part reliably. Where variants change and parts arrive unsorted, the person stays at the workplace – and needs a device that takes the weight.
The terms below describe the tasks: palletising and destacking, order picking, moving sheets, coils and reels, feeding and joining workpieces. Many of them come with a worked application.
What we do in this field
Workstation Analysis
We look at the workstation before we talk about equipment.
View serviceLifting Technology
Lifting equipment, manipulators and balancers for industry, medical technology and logistics.
View serviceMachine Building
Special-purpose machines from planning through manufacture to commissioning.
View serviceThe questions, answered in full
Manipulator or robot?
The robot wins on repetition. People win on variants.
Read the articleOverhead crane or dedicated device
The crane can take the load. The question is whether it can do the task.
Read the articleEconomics
The second person is the most expensive line in the calculation.
Read the articleRetrofitting existing plants
On paper everything fits. On the floor, centimetres count.
Read the articleWhat it looks like on the shop floor
Fitting gearboxes on the assembly line
The weight is not the problem. The repetition is.
Read the caseTurning sheet metal at the press brake
It is not the weight that forces two people. It is the area.
Read the caseMoving drums in hazardous areas
The zone is in the document. The equipment follows from it.
Read the caseSupporting torques up to 600 Nm
The torque goes into the arm – or into the person.
Read the caseMoving eight hundred cartons a shift
Twenty-five kilos are manageable. Eight hundred times twenty-five are not.
Read the caseRemoving mouldings from the machine
The reach into the mould area is the most expensive of the shift.
Read the caseLoading film reels into the machine
Any crane can pick it up. The unit has to hit the shaft.
Read the caseMoving sacks and packs in the wet area
What cannot be cleaned will not be used.
Read the casePalletising sacks from the bagging line
Fifteen tonnes a day, sack by sack, with the back.
Read the caseSetting glass panes and glazing
Glass does not forgive a second attempt.
Read the caseSetting battery modules into the housing
A module that knocks is not damaged. It is quarantined.
Read the caseChanging moulds on the injection moulding machine
The machine is not idle because it is broken. It is idle because it is being set up.
Read the caseEvery term, explained individually
19 Terms- Automation technology
- Technology that carries out processes without continuous human intervention. In handling there is a broad middle ground: semi-auto...
- Coil handling
- Handling of coiled strip and sheet material in steelworks, cold rolling mills and downstream processing. The task is usually solve...
- Conveying technology
- The technology of continuous or indexed transport of goods – belts, roller conveyors, chain conveyors, cranes. It bridges distance...
- Demoulding
- Releasing a part from its mould or formwork. The timing is a compromise: early demoulding shortens the mould cycle, late demouldin...
- Depalletising
- The reverse of palletising: taking a pallet down layer by layer. Ergonomically it is the harder half, because the height of the la...
- Destacking
- Separating the top part from a stack of like parts. With sheets, panels and nested containers this is harder than it sounds: oil,...
- Feeding technology
- Technology that brings parts to the place of processing in the right orientation and on takt. In hand-guided handling it mainly me...
- Heavy load handling
- Handling of loads above the range covered by hand-guided standard units. Honest demarcation matters here: above roughly 125 kilogr...
- Intralogistics
- The organisation and technical realisation of all material and goods flows within a site. Lifting aids and balancers are used here...
- Joining
- Bringing two parts together into a defined position – plugged, bolted, pressed or hooked in. For handling technology, joining is t...
- Material flow technology
- The planning and technology of the route material takes through a plant – from delivery through processing to despatch. Handling d...
- Material handling
- The movement, storage, protection and control of material within a plant. The term is broader than handling technology and include...
- Order picking
- Assembling articles into an order. What is demanding here is rarely the individual weight but the sum: 800 parcels per shift add u...
- Palletising
- Stacking packs onto a pallet layer by layer to a set pattern. By hand it is one of the most strenuous tasks in production: the bot...
- Robotics
- Programmable kinematics that performs a defined movement independently. It is superior when the same movement repeats very often a...
- Roll handling
- Handling of film, paper, non-woven and cable reels as well as rolls in printing, packaging and converting. Setting a reel onto the...
- Sheet and panel handling
- Handling of large-format sheets, panels and boards. The problem here is not the weight but the area: the material sags and the edg...
- Transfer technology
- Technology for handing workpieces between stations, machines or conveyors. It is the point at which many production lines still wo...
- Workpiece handling
- Picking up, turning, positioning and transferring workpieces in production – typically at machines, fixtures and assembly stations...
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