BBW Lasertechnik GmbH, Prutting (Bavaria), which offers a comprehensive range of laser material processing, uses the 10.8 m high, 11 m long and 5.6 m wide sheet metal warehouse from STOPA Anlagenbau GmbH, Achern-Gamshurst, to supply both floors of the factory hall with material. To ensure that the first floor is intralogistically connected to the second floor, a passageway was planned between the two levels. This meant that the structural steel components and the storage and retrieval unit could be lowered through the open roof to the first floor of the hall using a mobile crane.

The operator expects more storage capacity and flexibility, less damage to the sheets and less time spent handling and searching for materials from the system designed for the large format. Apart from this, he has the option of connecting his laser systems, which are in production, to the warehouse at any time. Before investing in the Stopa Compact II, BBW Lasertechnik worked with a warehouse that was designed for smaller formats.

In this case, the Stopa Compact II, which supplies a TruLaser 5030 laser cutting system, is equipped with 208 storage locations. There are 100 flat pallets available as load carriers, each with a maximum usable area of 1,525 x 3,050 mm and designed for sheets weighing up to 3,000 kg. As the operator works with fixed storage at a loading height, he makes full use of the available space and height.

The key added value of this storage system includes a patented weighing device, whose weighing cells are integrated into the pallet running surface of the draw beam, and the elimination of hydraulics. This solution reduces the cycle time by around 80 percent. Added to this is energy management based on a concept with two lightweight drive motors instead of one heavy motor, resulting in an overall weight reduction of around half a ton. On top of this, the operator can make the regenerative energy of one drive available to another as motor energy. STOPA also achieves smoother running of the system pallets by compensating for tolerances, thereby increasing process reliability.

The system components are controlled by a real-time soft PLC integrated into an industrial PC. The industrial PC equipped with a touchscreen is built into the console, which operates the system and visualizes its statuses. This includes graphic displays of the warehouse and the stacker crane, permanent status displays in plain text, diagnostic functions and the logging of all messages and travel orders. The STOPA warehouse management software "LVS-Basic" used at BBW Lasertechnik synchronizes the stocks with the operator's ERP system at night via a host interface.

As the sheet metal warehouse can be expanded at any time, the company is focusing on the option of integrating a third station on the upper floor of the hall and connecting additional machines.