Handled with care
THE DIVERSITY of products manufactured from wood, combined with the variety of different materials and surface finishes at the various processing stages, requires gripping and handling technology that is capable of meeting the myriad of material handling challenges posed by the sector.
For example, when handling porous or permeable workpieces such as MDF or particle board, workpieces can sometimes have a tendency to stick together during de-stacking operations. To overcome this issue, Schmalz large-area gripper modules use an integrated separating function which ensures that vacuum between the boards is eliminated by restricting the flow of compressed air, thus ensuring only one workpiece is picked up and held at any time.
Finished products such as furniture places particular demands on vacuum technology to ensure there is no marking or damage to the workpiece during handling. Suction cups manufactured from specially developed materials, and soft sealing foam are two of the solutions available from Schmalz on their gripping systems which make it possible to handle workpieces without damaging them or leaving marks.
Not all products manufactured in the woodworking sector are large, and in certain cases multiple individual items can be nested on a pallet layer. Using a nesting gripper such as the SPZ-NG from Schmalz makes it possible to de-stack these pallet layers in one handling cycle.
Because rough wooden boards, cut pieces, workpieces, assemblies, and furniture bodies come in a wide variety of shapes, weights and different physical properties, Schmalz offers two series of vacuum lifters: Jumbo vacuum tube lifters and VacuMaster vacuum lifting devices. A large selection of different suction cups is available for both series, with specially adapted crane systems and jib cranes supplementing the vacuum lifters.
For more information, visit www.schmalz.com
