Interroll provides performance boost for manufacturing logistics

It is not the performance of modern production machines but their material supply that promises the greatest potential for further productivity increases. With the new Smart Pallet Mover (SPM), Interroll has launched a solution that can be adapted as a flexible and modular pallet management system to meet a wide range of application requirements in industrial manufacturing.

Users can now finally 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 downtime, optimising 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, Interroll says productivity increases of up to 30 percent are possible compared to manual operation.

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).

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.

“With this platform solution, we are tapping into the great productivity potential offered by production-related pallet management automation for our customers and users,” explains Jens Struwing, executive vice president for products and technology at Interroll.