Hardly any other industry has to handle such large quantities at such high speed as the beverage processing industry: almost 30,000 crates move from production to storage at the Herford brewery every day. And the trend is rising. This also applies to the logistics requirements at the largest brewery in East Westphalia. For this reason, the company turned to the Sauerland-based conveyor technology manufacturer HaRo Anlagen- und Fördertechnik in neighboring Rüthen. The request: An old conveyor line was to be replaced by a new, modern line. However, the new system was not only to act as a conveying interface between production and the warehouse, it also had to be able to buffer and balance two floors.

Brewery tradition with a view to the future

The brothers Gustav and Georg Uekermann laid the foundation stone for the brewery back in 1878. At that time, the approximately 9,474 hectoliters produced were still transported to customers by brewery horses. The horses were eventually replaced by trucks, wooden barrels by aluminum barrels, and the product range was continuously expanded with the introduction of new specialties and recipes. More than 140 years later, the traditional company is one of the largest breweries in East Westphalia-Lippe. Growing product ranges and increasing sales require continuous adaptation of the production and logistics processes, so the company decided to modernize and expand the existing conveyor systems.

In its inquiry to the HaRo Group, the brewery defined its requirements very specifically: an automated connecting line was to be created between production and the warehouse, which could also be used at short notice as a buffer option for the pallets to be transported. As production and the warehouse are located on different levels, it was also necessary to balance the floors. The design management team at HaRo, led by Markus Löseke, designed a solution that effortlessly links two levels thanks to a vertical conveyor and offers sufficient space for buffering.

Material flow without waiting times or traffic jams

In the production area on the upper floor, the pallets are loaded automatically from the upstream conveyor system. The adjacent and driven HaRo roller conveyors from the "Quickflex" product group then transport the 40 crates per pallet fully automatically into the vertical conveyor. Markus Löseke explains the special features when the pallets enter the goods elevator: "Frequency-controlled drives on the vertical conveyor allow the pallets to enter and exit the vertical conveyor at twice the speed. At 24 meters per minute, the speed within the goods elevator is also twice as fast as the conveying speed of the 50-meter-long roller conveyor system, so there is no waiting time or congestion in front of the vertical conveyor. The conveyor system on the upper floor uses an intelligent concept in combination with the HaRo vertical conveyor: thanks to the implementation of a second level in the form of a steel structure, the space in the brewery's production hall is optimally utilized. In addition, the roller conveyors provide a buffer space for up to 50 pallets, which can be picked up without production coming to a standstill.

Given the quantity of pallets, it is important that the removal process can be extended if necessary without having to stop the entire production process. On the lower floor, the goods are transferred from the vertical conveyor back to the roller conveyors and after around 25 meters are manually removed by a forklift and transported to the storage location. If removal is delayed, the pallets can be easily buffered on the roller conveyors on the upper floor.

A strapping machine is also integrated into the conveyor line on the upper level, which wraps the pallets in film and prepares them for dispatch. The pallets then continue along the normal transport route.

As the conveyor system is regularly accessed by employees as part of maintenance work, safety on the conveyor systems is a top priority. Safety barriers and a safety gate on the vertical conveyor prevent people from entering the shaft. "The safety gate only opens when the safety system is active and a pallet is detected. As soon as people are in this area, the system automatically goes into emergency stop mode," says Markus Löseke, explaining the safety precautions.

Although the installation of such a system requires a great deal of time and manpower, HaRo always wants to avoid prolonged production downtime or stoppages at the customer's premises. At the Herford brewery, the existing strapping system had to be integrated into the new system. In order to avoid longer production downtimes, this was only integrated during the final assembly phase. "Beforehand, we had already carried out all the set-up and cabling for the entire conveyor system," explains HaRo Group Managing Director Christoph Hackländer. From planning to commissioning of the new system, the conveyor technology manufacturer handles all services in-house, resulting in a short response time and the customer benefits from the high level of reliability.

http://www.haro-gruppe.de