Healthy, satisfied employees, efficiency, flexibility, and sustainability—the same drivers push higher automation in handling everywhere. Best Handling Technology achieved all of this for a leading logistics customer with a Kenos® area gripper fitted with suction cups.
As a manufacturer of manually guided handling systems, optimal workplace design is the daily business of Best Handling Technology GmbH in Heuchelheim near Giessen. Palletising heavy cartons of different sizes, strapped or not, stresses end effectors and usually rules out standard solutions. For a major order of 32 workstations in logistics, Best Handling Technology turned to Piab to develop a customer-specific solution.
Flexibility and safety through proven vacuum technology and balancer
Rope balancer systems are mounted on articulated jib cranes and H-type crane systems. The gripper is based on proven Kenos® technology with integrated COAX® Midi ejectors. Each workstation uses two area grippers with an adjustment mechanism for fast changes between carton sizes. Each Kenos uses 16 durable BX52P DURAFLEX® cups in a custom grid instead of conventional technical foam, which would wear from multi-directional motion when handling heavy cartons.
Besides lower cup wear, safety matters greatly with manual manipulators. Even worn DURAFLEX® cups still seal well enough on permeable materials like cartons for accident-free handling. Defective cups are easy to see and can be replaced individually at the gripper, minimising downtime.
So explains Cedric Ries, Sales Manager Automation at Piab.
piSAVE® sense flow valves integrated in each cup thread close cups not covered by the carton to enable pick-up while saving energy by allowing smaller vacuum pumps.
Besides adjustable mounting of the two KENOS® grippers on each manual manipulator, this gives the flexibility for staff to pick cartons of different sizes from a roller conveyor, label and scan them, and place them in outer cartons or on pallets—without tool changes. For unpackaged heavy machine parts an integrated load hook can be folded out.
Minimum compressed air use with COAX® vacuum and piSAVE® optimize
Gripper control integrates a piSAVE® optimize valve—a vacuum-controlled proportional air valve. It reduces supply pressure so only the set vacuum level is reached and held. The vacuum ejector receives maximum feed pressure until vacuum is built, cutting compressed air use by roughly another 30–50%. Payback often within the first year via lower electricity; no new compressors and less maintenance on existing ones improve energy efficiency and sustainability.
The COAX® technology integrated in KENOS® grippers also cuts energy use; high initial vacuum flow gives secure, fast grip. COAX® ejectors are up to twice as fast as others and deliver three times the volume flow of conventional ejectors at the same air consumption, including at low or fluctuating supply pressure—as verified in independent tests at Fraunhofer IWU Dresden against other manufacturers’ ejectors. With no moving parts they are virtually maintenance-free, reducing compressed air cost and downtime.
Winfried Kaiser, Managing Director of Best Handling Technology: “Besides flexibility and ergonomic operation, energy efficiency was decisive for our customer. Outstanding vacuum technology and piSAVE® optimize valves convinced them with low compressed air use.”
Ergonomic and user-friendly—everything at the right height
Simple operation, high lift/lower speed, and gripper flexibility for many carton sizes without tool changes support optimal speed with high product variety. “Despite a large lift range the operator need not reach too high or low and can operate all controls without releasing the rotary grip,” Kaiser adds. “Before our lifters, repacking or palletising was manual—with injury and absence risk.”
Cooperation in the customer’s interest
“As a manufacturer of individual lifting solutions we found in Piab a partner willing to design outside standards, with excellent sample grippers for testing and technical ideas beyond the core Piab portfolio,” says Kaiser on the collaboration.
Kenos® KVG gripper from Piab in detail
The KVG series flexibly handles products of different shapes and sizes. Dual technology (check valves and flow restrictors) covers many industrial applications. KVG can use integrated vacuum generation or separate pumps or side-channel blowers. The integrated generator is a modular multi-stage COAX® ejector, serviceable and scalable after installation. The KVG foam mat (FDA-compliant option available) comes in different hole spacing and thickness. KVG120C and KVG60C can use cups from Piab’s range. Typical uses: palletising and handling in packaging, metal, glass, and wood.
BX52P DURAFLEX® cups suit uneven, porous surfaces such as cardboard, with bellows and lips in different hardness—strong and stable yet soft and flexible. Made from a special polyurethane combining rubber elasticity with plastic durability, they mark surfaces less and an internal filter disc protects the vacuum system from dirt.