Load handling made easy

Customer

Whoever wants to enhance their house by adding a conservatory and does not want to fall back on standard solutions made of aluminium profile sections – Vowisol GmbH is the right address for them. Established in Radeberg in Saxony in 1990, the company considers itself as a producer of bespoke and transparent architecture, has gained a leading position and become a recognised brand in the market. More than 90 employees plan high-quality conservatories, orangeries, greenhouses and pavilions. Vowisol is growing continuously and recently put a new production bay into service.

Requirement

The task for the Demag planning engineers was to incorporate a solution for handling long materials (profiles, beam elements) in the profile-processing operation in the new production area. In some parts of the workshop, they needed to consider the reduced headroom in order to transport the components also over the machinery.   

At the same time, the solution needed to be flexible enough to allow all the manufacturing equipment to be served in this part of production. This means that the employees would lift, move and transport the components to be machined through the various steps in production using a single handling system.

The management at Vowisol also wanted an ergonomic solution in line with health and safety requirements for the material flow in the new production area.

Solution

The modular KBK crane construction kit matches Vowisol’s requirements. Successfully used all over the world and continuously optimised for decades, this light crane system can be adapted to meet individual needs and building requirements in many ways.

For Vowisol, the Demag planning engineers designed a KBK system with a 24.5-metre-long crane runway, along which a double-girder crane with a span of 5347 mm travels. The DC-Com electric chain hoist used for this solution has a load capacity of 1,250 kg and provides the customer with a service life of 3,200 hours of operation under full load.

The chain hoist is controlled via a DSC pendant controller. The X and Y axes of the transport and handling system need no drives. The extremely smooth-running suspension crane enables loads to be transported horizontally when the operator moves them in the required direction.

Special features

A special feature is the raised crane bridge of the KBK double-girder crane. It enables maximum utilisation of the available headroom in the workshop. Measured from the floor, the suspensions are located at a height of 3942 mm. The chain hoist is installed on a bracket between the two crane girders and is located well above the crane girders. In this way, the chain hoist can achieve a fully acceptable lifting path of three metres to allow the loads to be transported from one workplace to the next. At Demag, this is a standard project engineering option for KBK equipment.

Arian Vorwerk, Managing Director of Vowisol, explains further reasons for the decision in favour of Demag: “We had already gained very good experience with a Demag slewing jib crane in our production area, which worked very well in practice. For our current extension, we wanted to have the relevant components transported throughout the entire workshop area by just one employee to meet flexible needs. That can now be done without any problems with the KBK suspension crane system. It is in use every day and fully justifies our investment in a crane system. Particularly heavy components can be safely moved overhead through the workshop by one person quickly, easily and without taking up any space.”

The DC-Com chain hoist is exactly right for daily operation in the production of the unusual conservatories. Designed for applications with normal usage, the DC-Com provides simple and reliable support at every step. It features high-quality Demag components and useful details as standard. The gearbox and slipping clutch are maintenance-free for up to 10 years, the brake of the selected DC-Com 10-1250 is maintenance-free for up to 5 years.