Maximum flexibility in handling operations
It is not the performance of modern production machines but their material supply that promises the greatest potential for further productivity increases in industrial companies today. With the new Smart Pallet Mover (SPM), Interroll has launched an innovative solution that can be adapted as a flexible and modular pallet management system to meet a wide range of application requirements in industrial manufacturing.
By introducing SPM (Smart Pallet Mover) Interroll provides its customers with a system offering impressive benefits: users can now automate work processes in front of the machine production to avoid manual activities in safety-critical areas and manage the pallet work flow by buffering, sorting, sequencing and carrying at the right time to deliver significant improvement of the machine down time optimizing the return on investment (ROI) of the machine production cells. This not only eliminates costly production interruptions for material supply to machines, but also the risk of accidents during operation. In this way, productivity increases of up to 30 percent are possible compared to manual operation. Before the official market launch, the new solution had already won two internationally renowned awards. For example, the Smart Pallet Mover won the Red Dot Award, Product Design 2021, for its exceptional design quality and degree of innovation. At the same time, the solution was chosen by the independent experts of the “International Intralogistics and Forklift Truck of the Year Award (IFOY AWARD)” in March 2021 as a finalist of this globally renowned intralogistics award.
Ideal supplement for driverless transport systems
The Smart Pallet Mover is a pallet management solution for automating pallet transport in the vicinity of manufacturing machines and for production-related picking and sequencing processes, which can also be used in Industry 4.0 environments. The SPM is designed to transport, sort and buffer boxes or pallets weighing up to 1,000 kilograms. It represents a mobile and autonomously acting material flow system that can be used, for example, as a cost-efficient supplement or substitute for forklifts or automated guided vehicles (AGVs). Claudio Carnino, Managing Director of Interroll Italia explains how the SPM solution can be integrated in industrial environments that have already implemented the concepts of Industry 4.0: “Our smart pallet mover solution fits perfectly into the logic of Industry 4.0. The concept of Industry 4.0 is based on the tendency of industrial automation to integrate with new production technologies to improve production, create new business models and increase the productivity and production quality of the plants. It also relies on communicative concepts between production structures that lead to data generation, which is essential for increasing production efficiency and effectiveness. If we imagine a model plant, we realize that production automation has reached important peaks everywhere except in the so-called “last mile” in production logistics, i.e. the movement, organization, entry and exit of pallets in proximity to the production machines. We still have a significant amount of manual labour here; where there is automation, this is often not very flexible, and is expensive. The serving of production machinery is a common occurrence with forklifts. This can create disruption, poor coordination and hazardous situations. An alternative is offered by AGVs, which are more precise, automated, but inflexible and quite expensive. Conversely, our solution is customizable, flexible, safe, automated and definitely more affordable. Its design is carried out in synergy with the customer, who is presented with an original, scalable solution that is ready to be connected to the handling facilities from the warehouse.”
Flexibility: an essential requirement in intralogistics solutions
The Smart Pallet Mover solution consists of various modules. The heart of the solution is a mobile unit (SM1000 Mover) that runs underneath non-driven conveyor sections and moves pallets lying on them. A transfer car (SM2000 Transfer Car) which moves on a rail can transport pallets between parallel conveyor sections. The flexibility of this innovative solution, the use of proven technologies and a very short payback period ensure that users can significantly strengthen their competitiveness. As with all Interroll products, the Smart Pallet Mover is extremely easy to install, operate and maintain.
The modular plug-and-play solution can therefore be put into operation without lengthy interruptions to production, even during modernization projects. Networking capabilities based on global data standards such as REST API and JSON ensure maximum compatibility and ease of use. The conveyor modules can be reconfigured very easily if required, and height-adjustable supports allow the system to be installed even on uneven floors.
Automated intralogistics: where do SMEs stand?
The survey conducted by Interroll has shown that the level of automation of intralogistics among SMEs is not particularly high. Claudio Carnino analyses the reasons: “Small and medium-sized businesses are the economic backbone of our country. The commitment to the digital transformation of production is strong and the leap towards total automation of the production chain cannot always be uniform. There is never a single reason why a technology or production concept is not applied uniformly. After all, diversity of production, differences in financial commitments, economic accounts to be squared persist, especially in an ongoing pandemic period like the one we are experiencing. The production chain is analyzed by each entrepreneur with their vision and propensity for change. Every investment must be weighed up, above all in view of its return. The survey conducted by our company has identified a gap in automation, not so much in intralogistics as in production serving. Intralogistics as a whole, understood as a system for handling raw materials, semi-finished or finished products to and from the warehouse, is now inherent in the production workflow and automation development is at a good stage. It is also clear that the situation varies greatly according to the production sector and the individual processing and shipment efficiency improvement requirements. I don’t think that the mentality or culture of entrepreneurs should be blamed for anything. Our entrepreneurial workforce excel in their ability, intuition and imagination, but every investment must be considered and made in the right conditions.
The health emergency has changed the scenario of retail channels
The health emergency situation caused by Covid-19 has also required changes in terms of logistics and has led companies using intralogistics solutions to evaluate investment prospects. Mr. Carnino presents his vision on this theme: “The pandemic has thrown the world into a situation that could not have been anticipated: everything has changed without warning and without a safety net. The economy has suffered immensely, but some industries had to keep going: the food supply chain, the supply to large retailers, the uninterruptible flow of health supplies are examples of everything that has worked seamlessly. E-commerce, which was experiencing a period of great vitality even before the pandemic, also received a further impetus. The pandemic has placed every sector of consumer production facing the opportunity of developing an alternative sales channel to the physical one. The previous experiences of the big e-commerce players and of particular sectors such as fashion, which base their development and success on their logistical skills, are leading many branches to leap into e-commerce. It is obvious that e-commerce practices benefit from automation technologies. The psychology of online shopping has its weakness in the lead time between order and delivery. The shorter the interval, the greater the chances that the consumer will return to buy online. The faster the reverse logistics activities, the higher the end-customer’s satisfaction. All these operations are based on an efficient workflow and high-tech automated structures. We can proudly say that Interroll plays its part in this sector as we supply technologies and components to the leading operators in the sector.”