Knapp's 5000th Shuttle blasts off!

Warehouse automation supplier Knapp has delivered the 5000th shuttle from its OSR Shuttle range, which now boasts over 100 satisfied customers worldwide. Although there are several similar products on the market today, the shuttle storage concept was invented by Knapp when the OSR Shuttle made its market debut back in 2002. Knapp has continued to develop the system, adding new variations to the range since then, and is about to launch even more innovations.

Customers in diverse industries around the world are reaping the benefits of the proven OSR Shuttle system and there are reported to be orders in the pipeline for another 2000 shuttles. There are several large projects underway in the UK and Germany that feature OSR Shuttle solutions - some with rack heights of 18m and rack lengths of more than 100m.

The OSR Shuttle is the foundation for Knapp's low-complexity warehouse concept, which aims to reduce the number of technologies used around the warehouse. The OSR Shuttle system can be tailored to suit a wide range of customer requirements, with variations available from specialised dispatch systems to high-performance multideep warehouses.

All OSR Shuttle solutions are modular, formed from the key components of racking, shuttles, lift system and control system. The OSR Shuttle covers all the key processes of the modern automated warehouse including storage, consolidation, sequencing, buffering, picking and handling of returns. The modular design allows system expansion to be carried out step-by-step, and the investment scaled accordingly, when customer needs change over time and create demands for increased performance or capacity.

The OSR Shuttle can handle a large variety of containers, trays and cartons, as well as raw products such as film-wrapped CDs, DVDs and videogames. The intelligent control system supports RFID, allowing all the relevant product data to be saved in a chip that is integrated into the tote, making barcode scanning a thing of the past.