Client
For more than 100 years, CARL SPAETER Hamburg has been one of the leading steel traders for trade, commerce and industry in the north of Germany. With around 140 employees in Hamburg, the company offers a full range of sectional steel, bright steel, stainless steel, quality steel and non-ferrous metals in a warehouse area of over 42,000 m². From Scandinavia to the Baltic States, CARL SPAETER Hamburg is a reliable partner for steel in the north and recently invested in a modern, high-performance sawing centre.
Initial situation and challenge
CARL SPAETER was looking for a solution for the reliable automation of its sawing production processes. The main objective was to minimise employee involvement in the machines and to enable unmanned shifts. The system needed to have a high degree of automation and be able to perform straight and mitre cuts.
CARL SPAETER is a full-range supplier with an extremely extensive range of materials. It includes wide flange beams, shaped steels, bar steels, angles, flat materials and tubes made of structural steels, some of which are also galvanised. Processing is carried out in both single bar and bundle operation.
Solution and arrangement of the system
To solve this complex task, CARL SPAETER Hamburg opted for two HBP410-723GA-E automatic mitre bandsaws with double grippers from BEHRINGER. The two sawing lines are arranged parallel to each other and can be controlled centrally by one operator. The special feature of the sawing system is its two portal grippers, which are arranged on the infeed and outfeed sides. They transport offcuts, remnants and short offcuts away reliably.
The two grippers also make it possible to mitre cut round tubes on both sides (plane-parallel or double mitre) with maximum precision.
The overhead crane is used to remove bundles or several individual bars from the store at the same time and place them on the pre-storage area. Here, the operator has the option of removing strapping and separating bundles without interrupting the automatic sawing line. The individual bars are then fed onto the automatic cross conveyors. The option of separating the raw materials on the infeed side effectively reduces crane travel distances and crane utilisation time.
Your cut-off gripper clamps the parts during the sawing process and then transports them out of the saw to the desired storage position. Even the shortest cuts, gussets or short parts are transported fully automatically.
A closed material table is located next to the roller conveyor, onto which good parts up to 1,500 mm in length are pushed. Thanks to its ergonomic working height, parts can be effortlessly unloaded or further processed by the worker. Two boxes are arranged on the opposite side of the roller conveyor. One of the boxes is used for bulk material orders. The other box is used for trimmings, offcuts and scrap.
Good parts up to 12,200 mm cut-off length are conveyed to the four storage positions for long products at the end of the system. Each stacker consists of driven chain strands, which enable particularly space-saving storage. Order-related picking takes place automatically at the storage positions. Several customer orders can also be efficiently nested on one bar.
The packages for transport are formed outside the security area directly next to the storage area. This prevents interruptions to automatic operation.
Result
CARL SPAETER Hamburg was able to fully automate its sawing centre with the two mitre saw lines with double grippers from BEHRINGER. Despite the complexity of the task, the company has managed to establish a sawing process that requires very little manual intervention by the operator.
Internal transport routes have also been reduced thanks to the excellent accessibility of the lines. The entire stock remains in a bay and is moved to the sawing system using an overhead crane. Good parts are removed directly from the unloading stations according to order and packages are produced for transport to the end customer.
CARL SPAETER Hamburg receives an effective response to the demographic change thanks to the great flexibility of the system, its high degree of automation and low labour input, coupled with the high system throughput.