Blue stallion ensures precision

Material flow: Your products are called Frog, Fox, Tiger and Bear - and now the stallion has been added. How did you come up with the idea of giving your products animal names?

Wilfried Klein-Neerken:

Bear is associated with strength and stability. This carrier is suitable for heavy workpieces. The fox is clever - this is the name we gave our cleaning workpiece carrier. The Frog is the name for a cover system. When the lid is released, the shape allows the water to run off. To join this series, we have named our latest development "Stallion". The stallion is associated with power, but also elegance. With this name, it simply fits into our overall marketing concept.

MFL: The Stallion is a further development of the Tiger workpiece carrier. What exactly has been improved?

Klein-Neerken:

We have used a new manufacturing process for the Stallion. The height of the workpiece carrier is fixed via the machine production process, so that significantly tighter tolerances are possible here. Plant manufacturers often use the inwardly offset surface in the side wall of the Tiger for positioning; the Stallion has so-called funnels for this purpose.

MFL: So the advantage of the Stallion is that it can be positioned so precisely. You also say that you don't need light barriers or a camera system to determine the position of the workpieces before the robot picks them up. Could you please explain why the Hengst can do this so well?Klein-Neerken: What is new and secured by a patent is that the Stallion can be positioned from the underside in the corners with the tightest tolerances and on the otherwise inaccurate side facing away from the tool. For example, turned bolts on an aluminum plate can be used for positioning. There is no need to construct expensive, laterally mounted pneumatically operated guides that center the workpiece carrier at the tool-facing points. So-called "pyramids" are fitted on all sides, allowing the workpiece carrier to be positioned precisely in the X, Y and Z axes using a lifting cylinder with a ball attached to the front.

MFL: And why is precise positioning so important?Klein-Neerken: If the workpiece carriers are at different heights - this can certainly be the case from batch to batch in conventional production - so if the height differences are too great, this can cause the palletizer to fail and therefore also affect the downstream automation units because the gripper no longer "finds" the position or workpiece carriers jam in the system.

Wilfried Klein-Neerken is convinced that the "Stallion" will cause a sensation at LogiMAT.

MFL: And the Stallion does not have these different heights? Klein-Neerken: All Stallions are identical from batch to batch. This is because we have found a way of milling the tools "from the solid", which eliminates the need to adjust the tools.

MFL: You develop 200 new workpiece carriers per month. Are they individually adapted to the customer's wishes? How long does it take until a new workpiece carrier is ready?

Klein-Neerken:

Each workpiece carrier is unique. Once an order is received, the entire production process takes around twelve weeks.

MFL: What else is new or innovative about the Hengst? Klein-Neerken: There is space on both long sides to attach a VDA-compliant label pocket. The gripper channel is an exceptional 15 millimetres high as standard. Concretely speaking, this means that there are also many more options for manual handling - for example, for removing from the pallet - using handling devices. The stack edge behind the stops can therefore no longer get caught.

MFL: Thank you very much, Mr. Klein-Neerken, for the interview.

The interview was conducted by editor Susanne Frank. She is curious to see how much attention the newcomer among the frogs, tigers and foxes will receive at LogiMAT.

Workpiece carriers from Nordhorn

It is only a few kilometers from Nordhorn to the Dutch border. Variotech has its headquarters here in the far southwest of Lower Saxony. Founded in 1998 as a 3-man operation, the workpiece carriers with the animal names are developed, designed, produced and sold on the German and European market here. The customers are mainly from the automotive industry.