The 6.5 meter high and six meter wide tower storage systems supplied by Stopa Anlagenbau enable compact use of space. KTS uses a crane to place delivered sheets onto the flat pallets of the Stopa Tower Mono for storage. Additional storage is possible on pallets containing the same material. The operator selects the numbers of the pallets and has them moved out onto the lifting beam, which takes over all storage and retrieval processes. Once the pallet is loaded and released, it automatically returns to its compartment.

KTS buffers 60 to 80 types of sheet metal in thicknesses from one to 20 mm in the tower warehouses. The warehouses are designed for a fixed height grid of 55 mm so that the permissible weight of loaded pallets cannot be exceeded. As the broad product spectrum ranges from simple flame-cut parts to complex, fully painted welded assemblies, KTS expects a high level of flexibility and availability with regard to storage processes.

Both Stopa Tower Mono systems, which exceed the previous dimensions of these sheet metal storage systems, are equipped with flat pallets for sheets in special formats. The smaller system, which is around eight meters long, is equipped with 22 storage locations and pallets with a usable area of 2,032 x 6,096 mm. The permissible payload is up to 5,000 kg. The larger, approximately eleven-meter-long system has 16 storage locations and pallets with a usable area of 2,000 x 9,000 mm. These load carriers are designed for a maximum payload of 7,500 kg. The height positioning of the stationary lifting beam runs via an absolute and load-independent digital distance measuring system, which stands for high positioning accuracy and eliminates the need to move to a reference point. The lifting beam, whose functions are reliably controlled by the control system, achieves speeds of twelve meters per minute when lifting and six meters per minute when pulling.

The tower stores primarily supply a laser cutting machine in two-shift operation. The crane, which is equipped with a suction traverse, is used to transport the sheets from the respective warehouse and return the remaining sheets. The operator triggers material retrieval by entering the number of the pallet to be retrieved or search criteria such as the thickness, width, length, quality, surface and article number of the material. The warehouse control systems each consist of an industrial PC with an integrated real-time soft PLC. The PLC controls the system components; the PC equipped with a touchscreen operates the system in question and displays its status.