At its Esslingen-Mettingen site Daimler AG produces engines, axles and transmissions for the company’s current passenger car models. At present the dispatch area for rear axles in Mettingen is being modernised. For this, changes to the existing conveyor technology are needed. H + H is supplying the required transport equipment for moving the axle frames in the dispatch area on the existing conveyor system, with transport weights of up to 2 tonnes.

In close collaboration with the system partner Siemens AG in Stuttgart, Herrmann + Hieber is to implement the ready-assembled conveyor system by January 2100 in Mettingen.

When Herma GmbH, the internationally leading manufacturer of self-adhesive labels, set up the world’s most modern coating plant for adhesive materials in 2007, H + H Herrmann + Hieber was given responsibility for seamless material flow. In the now forthcoming expansion stage of the new factory the contract for modernising the pallet conveyor technology in the goods reception area has again been awarded to H + H.

The measures planned aim to improve the efficiency of transport processes in this area and to increase the availability of the automatic conveyor equipment. For this, in collaboration with the customer the material flow in the area concerned was analysed and will be improved. Among other things, in future reversed sequences will be possible. Unless replacement seems necessary, the existing transport equipment of another manufacturer will be checked and refurbished. New installations will include individual elements of the mechanical equipment and the current AC asynchronous motors.

The time available for this work is quite short, since commissioning is scheduled for the end of February 2010.

MF + S is an engineering company that has specialised in services in the areas of material flow and control technology. The company’s field of work includes new plant, reconstructions, and servicing facilities. In the context of reconstruction measures, as in the case of MAN, the entire plant is to be modernised and brought up to the most recent state of the art both electronically and in terms of control technology. The current reconstruction measures relate to the small-load carrier (SLC) transport unit in the goods-in area. By modifying the material flow, including conversion of the labelling station, new possibilities will be provided for the use of floor-space. H + H is involved in close consultations with the general contractor and the customer regarding the implementation of the new transport concept. The necessary reconstruction work has to be carried out during the end-of-year closure of operations (between 20 December and 10 January 2011). This restricted time scale demands careful planning and preparation of the work. In that respect H + H benefits from its ample experience in the servicing and reconstruction of SLC conveyor equipment.

Booming section production and sharpening competition provide incentives for many producers to consider measures for optimising their processes and equipment. At the Alcan extrusion plant in Landau there is potential in modernising the crane transport.

In Germany Alcan operates three extrusion plants with a total of four presses between 20 and 35 MN. Total production of sections amounts to more than 40,000 tonnes per year. A press line with extrusion load 20 MN operates at the plant in Landau.

The automatic crane is specially designed. Although it works with cables, the crane can also move the racks through horizontally with its load in a suspended gripper. This feature will be retained when the reconstruction rakes place. Completion will be quite soon, early in November this year.

In the context of this extension, in 2005 H + H Herrmann + Hieber designed and supplied the equipment for the automatic section transport system. Now, H + H has been commissioned to adapt the transport equipment to cope with the plant’s meanwhile much increased productivity.

The higher section production at the extrusion plant has led to bottlenecks, which now have to be selectively eliminated. Since the automatic crane works in a shed close to the press, the filled racks must be moved from the stacker to the area of the crane. The shuttle vehicle originally provided for this has now become one of the said bottlenecks. As part of the measures concerned, that transport stretch is to be redesigned. In addition, a further transport stretch will be installed to carry goods away from the crane area.

The successor company of Österreichischen Metallwerke AG (later AMAG) is now one of Europe’s best-performing extrusion plants. Following privatisation in 1996 the decision for the production of sections by an independent company marked, as it were, the hour of HAI’s birth.

Specifically, the current project is intended to eliminate bottlenecks in the material flow system. For this, H + H worked out a number of solution variants. After detailed discussion of these proposals HAI decided that besides the implementation of additional conveyor bypass stretches, the performance of one of the six H + H automatic cranes should be improved by around 25 percent. For this, as part of the work concerned the synchronised positioning system of the crane will be brought up to the latest state of the art.

However, in the first instance an automated rack transport was constructed only as far as the ageing furnaces on the upper floor of the new building. At the time it was agreed that additional measures would be implemented when the press began production and provided that the workload of the plant was satisfactory.

That point has now been reached. For the now forthcoming next automation step H + H is to incorporate the packaging in the automatic transport system.

For this, two new packing stations will be installed on the upper floor of the new shed, behind the two ageing furnaces. To serve these packing stations H + H has designed a completely new and innovative type of destacking machine, which has special abilities. The stacker can handle different rack types with varying widths, it can work from two positions, and can serve two packing stations.

For the rack transport an automatic crane supplied by H + H in the first extension stage is available. The equipment supplies also includes floor-level conveyor stretches which will connect the old production shed and the new shed at upper floor level.

MF + S is an engineering company which specialises in providing services in the area of material flow – new plants, refurbishments, servicing facilities – and in the field of control technology. The company’s circle of customers includes numerous noted industrial addresses in Germany and Europe, among them also Erdinger Weißbräu in Erding, Bavaria.

With an annual output of more than 1.45 million hl and exports to over 70 countries, Erdinger is today the worldwide market leader and largest white beer brewery in Germany under family ownership. Employing 450 people at present, the company is still expanding and works continually to modernise its production equipment.

As part of a modernisation project in the area of recovering empties, H + H has now been commissioned to supply the necessary conveyor technology. The aim of the project is to sort and allocate the empties delivered. To distinguish between the empties an identifier unit is being installed, which will differentiate the empties arriving in mixed crates and sort them automatically by type.

For this project H + H is supplying the pallet conveyor technology, which will transport and distribute the pallets of empties. The new conveyor tracks to be installed for this will be connected both to the existing conveyor equipment and to the empties recognition system used.

Delivery completion is scheduled for mid-October 2010.

The solution developed by H + H has never before been used in the context of extrusion operation. A mobile carriage will be loaded outside the building with four bars at a time. The bars will be fully automatically placed individually in channels in the carriage formed for that purpose. The carriage has a rotation device so that the position of the bars transported can be adapted to the requirements in each case.

With the bars, the carriage will pass through an opening leading into the building. There, it will turn through 90° to a position where an automatic crane can take up the bars and ;ay them between stanchions one on top of another. For this, it is ensured that the stanchions are strong enough to exclude the possibility of damage when the operation is carried out correctly.

In the context of this contract H + H will supply the equipment, the control system and also the store management system. Production is scheduled to begin on 24 November 2010.

With its ‘Heavy Loads’ field of activity H + H covers an increasingly interesting niche in the extrusion industry. During its at least 20 years of activity in the sector of conveyor systems for long goods H + H has completed well over 50 projects at almost every noted extrusion address in Germany and other European countries. This makes the company both a pioneer, and at the same time market leader in this special area of work.

What distinguishes H + H particularly in this context is the integrated approach followed by the company in its projects. Competent specialists, who can discuss the problems specific to the extrusion plant face to face with the customer, analyse the existing sequences, identify weak points and propose appropriate solutions – having regard to all their consequences. Quits often alternative proposals are worked out, between which the customer can decide.

The result: all the projects show that the production operation benefits in many ways from automation of the material flow. The rationalisation effect is directly evident in reduced personnel needs along with higher productivity, i.e. in the trouble-free conduct of the individual processes. Furthermore, the company can also put this increased productivity to use as necessary. If needs be, the output of the plant can be adapted flexibly to market requirements. An example: according to data from the company concerned, comprehensive logistical planning at a leading Italian extrusion plant enabled the maximum output to be boosted by around 35% compared with what it used to be.

As a worldwide active development partner and series supplier of cylinder heads and special seals, plastic housing modules and screening components for engines, transmissions and exhaust units, ElringKlinger supplies almost every automobile producer in Europe, North and South America, as well as numerous vehicle manufacturers in Asia. With the new high-rise store in Dettingen the company intends to decouple production from storekeeping. For this, as part of the measure the transfer of products into and out of store and the goods reception area are being reorganised by linking them via two pre-store zones.

H + H is supplying the necessary transport and handling equipment. This relates in particular to the pallet conveyor technology (pallets weighing up to 2 tonnes) in four of the total of five lanes and to the special transport of steel coils in one store lane. The special technical features of the coil transport system include a gantry by which the steel coils are placed, correctly positioned, on steel tables. During this, unit weights of up to 3.5 tonnes have to be moved. Upstream from the gantry system are so-termed ‘coil turners’ in which the sheet coils brought in with their axis horizontal are rotated through 90 degrees (vertical coil axes) for storage.

In close collaboration with the overall contractor BSS Bohnenberg GmbH and system partners for building and for shelf-store technology, Herrmann + Hieber is implementing the technical designs for the conveyors, which will be ready-assembled by December 2010 in Dettingen/Erms.

In close collaboration with the system partners for building and for shelf-store technology, Herrmann + Hieber is implementing the technical designs for the conveyors, which will be ready-assembled by December 2010 in Dettingen.

The parts required for engine assembly are delivered in specified containers by trucks that operate by the roll-on/roll-off (Ro-Ro) principle. The transfer station is designed, as it were, as a sluice against which the vehicle docks. The load – lattice box pallets or suchlike – is transferred automatically from the semitrailer, checked fully automatically, and booked into the system. Transport to the work stations on the assembly lines is carried out by driverless transport vehicles. For the decentralised storage system H + H has developed so-termed storage exchange towers in which the parts needed are held until called up from the assembly point as required.

Recently it became evident that owing to the changing market requirements, parts of this operating procedure had to be optimised. To do this, among other things it was found necessary to replace some of the storage towers with new distribution methods. The plant therefore initiated a production sequence modernisation project, which is at present being implemented continually. Where material flows are concerned in this, H + H is involved as the decisive logistics partner for these measures.

For final mechanical production SHW Automotive uses automated production lines. The area after the hardening furnace, the removal of the brake discs from the transport track of the hardening furnace and subsequent cooling stretch, is now to be extended. For this, H + H will increase the number of control work-stations from the present 1, to 3 worker positions.

A timed-cycle turntable divided into four sections has been designed and provided for this, on which the brake discs coming from the cooling stretch are placed in a controlled manner. A hoist system is provided for the transfer. The turntable, which is 5,200 mm in diameter, will deliver the brake discs to the three newly designed work-stations.

In accordance with current safety specifications the three work-stations will be equipped with appropriate covers and ergonomically designed accessories. The provisional completion date is August 2010.

In accordance with the ISO Standard 9001 guideline Zentis regularly carries out supplier assessments. For this, the evaluation scale has the following classifications:

81 to 100 points          Preferred supplier
71 to 80 points            Main supplier
Under 70 points           Acceptable supplier

For the 2009 period Herrmann + Hieber was classified as a Preferred supplier, with a score of 91 points. Managing Director Georg Konti says: “We are delighted with this result, which at the same time is an incentive for us to strive for even greater customer satisfaction.”

This detailed assessment is particularly satisfying for H + H. The overall assessment covers the aspects of ‘price’, ‘quality’, ‘service’ and ‘opinion of subcontractors’. It is therefore designed so that even significant price discounts alone cannot result in a positive overall assessment unless the other performance aspects too are up to scratch. Conversely, however, it shows – as in the case of H + H – that it is acceptable for first-rate quality, service and supplies to come at a price.

Herrmann + Hieber’s price structure scored 55 points in the Zentis assessment, quality scored 95 points, service 99 points and supplies 100 points. Managing Director Georg Konti comments: “This positive outcome reinforces our strategy of declining, now and in the future, to participate in price wars in which the price charged can ultimately hardly cover material costs. What is at stake here is the reputation of our company.”

The success of this product segment has now made it necessary to enlarge production. As part of this an existing hot-ageing furnace on the plant’s land is to be relocated in a newly built shed. LOI Thermprocess GmbH, the furnace construction company in Essen, has been entrusted with the move as general contractor, while Herrmann + Hieber will be responsible for all necessary measures in the context of conveyor technology, including the necessary safety precautions.

The hot-ageing furnace to be moved, with its three heating zones, has dual-track conveyor technology divided into three parts. These are the input conveyor, the furnace conveyor and the run-out conveyor. In normal operation the complete furnace charge is collected in front of the furnace inlet and moved into the furnace chamber.

The furnace unit to be built in the new shed is modified inasmuch as the containers emerging at the end of their passage through the furnace are transported out of the shed through a wall opening (with an automatic gate), so that the containers can be taken away in the open. When they are deposited at the furnace inlet it must be taken into account that on leaving the shed they have to be separated individually.

Completion is planned for August 2010.