Simple, flexible, intelligent automation

Hanover/Hamburg, 18^th March 2014 – There is an unbroken trend towards the partial or full automation of various processes in warehouse storage or in production supply. Small and medium-sized companies in particular are increasingly interested in the automation of warehouse and transport processes. That’s why the intralogistics system house STILL will be showing the latest solutions and systems from its iGo product program live at the CeMAT trade fair. This will allow visitors to experience for themselves, in a live presentation, systems such as the iGoEasy, which can be intuitively operated, installed and adapted by using an iPad.

Advertisement

Companies are focussing increasingly on the topic of automating logistics processes to design intralogistic goods flows more efficiently, to reduce costs or to proactively counteract the consequences of demographic development. However, many decision-makers dread at the high level of complexity in the planning and design, initial setting up and adaptation of today’s automation solutions, and the difficulty in calculating the investment costs for their procurement, maintenance and adaptation. Moreover, the requirements regarding logistics are changing and there is a demand for ever faster, flexible, adaptable solutions.

The Hamburg based STILL GmbH brings together under the name iGo a wide variety of intelligent automation solutions for intralogistics – regardless of whether the need is to equip a newly designed or an existing warehouse. Today STILL is one of the specialists in greatest demand worldwide in the area of automated warehouse solutions. This success is also due to the fact that STILL focuses on automating its own series production trucks. As a result the user receives not only products that are proven in everyday logistics use and round-the-clock service, but also maximum flexibility and high availability because all the trucks also remain manually operable. Thus operators can access their goods at any time, and as a result automation projects can be implemented while ongoing warehouse operations continue.

iGoSystems

iGoSystems comprises all the products offered for complex, customised automation solutions, consisting of the installation and combination of automated series production trucks and the corresponding engineering, navigation, route programming, master computers, project planning, commissioning and service. The entire intralogistics materials flow can be automated by using STILL series production trucks.

These converted series production trucks can be used to automate almost all the vertical and horizontal transport tasks that can be accomplished with classical industrial trucks. To do this, the trucks move on predetermined routes. Navigation takes place via various technologies, e.g. laser or magnetic point navigation, which STILL selects to meet the specific need. While personnel protection scanners guarantee the highest level of safety in every driving direction, the customised choice of the most appropriate sensors ensures precise pallet recognition. The master computer is the heart of the solution: it distributes the orders from the ERP or warehouse management system to the automated forklifts in an optimum way, undertakes the traffic control on the pre-programmed driving routes, visualises all the truck movements and monitors the battery charge states.

STILL has developed and implemented individually customised, fully integrated automation concepts in accordance with the specific requirements in a series of projects in various industrial sectors – from the food industry and logistics services providers to medical technology and the automobile industry. External systems such as stretchers or conveyors were also integrated into the overall solution at the same time.

iGoEasy

STILL’s latest development, which is called iGoEasy, provides a quick, cost-efficient, uncomplicated entry into the automation of transport and goods handling processes. The system solution, which has been nominated for the IFOY Award in the category Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV), is a combination of an iPad as the control device, an EGV-S driverless pedestrian-controlled high-lift truck, reflectors, a truck computer and a WLAN. This solution is suitable for areas in which up to now goods transport was reasonable only by using manually driven forklifts, e.g. supplying and removing waste from a production unit. By using the intuitively operable iGoEasy-App, the user can independently install and commission the system and can adapt it to changing framework conditions at any time. This puts operators for the first time in a position to automate simple transport tasks entirely independently.

For position sensing, it is first of all necessary to install reflectors and to calibrate their position. For this the truck is driven manually along the route through the corresponding storage area, and stations are driven to and activated by a finger-tap on the iPad. The App generates and visualises the optimum driving route from the recorded data, and driving orders can afterwards be communicated to the truck by finger-tap and WLAN, and carried out automatically. Thanks to the easily understood user interface, settings such as speed limits, one-way routes and station properties can be configured in a self-explanatory way. With the cockpit function including a live image, the user has the automated truck in view at all times during ongoing operations. The truck’s current position is displayed on a virtual warehouse plan, and important data such as speed, battery charge or transport orders are displayed via easily understood graphics. New driving orders can be generated without any complications and existing driving orders modified via the iGoEasy App. Moreover, driving orders that are used frequently can be stored in a quick choice menu. The innovative system can be controlled from anywhere within the WLAN network.

Anyone who wants to experience iGoEasy themselves at first hand can do this live at the CeMAT from 19th to 23rd May in Hanover at the STILL trade fair stand in pavilion P35.

iGoRemote

iGoRemote is a semi-automatic system without any installation expense that is controlled by using a remote controller. It consists of an order-picking truck of the CX 20 type or a towing tractor of the CX-T type, a remote controller that can be attached to the arm or belt, a radio receiver and a personnel protection device on the truck. The system is designed to allow order-picking procedures to be simplified and made more efficient by avoiding the need for the order picker to enter and leave the truck, and instead he/she can concentrate on his/her order picking work and can walk directly to the next bay. For this the truck moves parallel with or in front of him/her – individually controlled by the remote controller – alongside the shelf while he/she removes the articles from the shelf and places them on the pallet. At the same time it can at any time, by pressing a button on the remote controller, change the side or automatically avoid obstacles, after which it can automatically find its way back to the programmed route again. The simple, cost-effective system shows its full advantages mainly in order-picking areas with long route distances, and enables productivity increases of between 20 and 30% - due to shorter walking distances and markedly reduced entry and exit operations.