CeMat inspires fresh materials handling thinking

The trade show—which appears every three years in Hannover, Germany—offered new ideas for high-density storage, robotic palletizing, sortation, lift trucks and more

Tom Andel -- Logistics Management, 6/4/2008

HANNOVER, Germany—After a day of viewing the exhibits at the CeMat “intralogistics showcase,” held last week in Hannover, Germany, a typical American materials handling professional’s reaction might have been: “I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more.” He’d be one of 60,000 other visitors who were kept busy over the exposition’s five days finding the way to their own version of OZ, where they hoped to find a unique solution to their materials handling challenges. Since 40% of these visitors were from places outside Germany, it was clear many were willing to absorb today’s higher travel costs to find a solution that would more than pay them back.

High-density storage

A stop at SSI Schaefer’s exhibit proved to be a rich source of fresh ideas on the application of ergonomic workstations, high-density automated storage systems and robotic palletization. Rob Schmit, vice president and managing director of the company’s Automation & Systems Division, walked Modern through the company’s displays, focusing on details that might appear foreign to some Americans. Many might have seen high-density storage with movable aisles in their local library, for example, but in a cold storage warehouse?

“Super dense storage is growing in popularity everywhere else but in the States,” Schmit said. “I don’t get it. Think about the green impact. You can get 30% more pallets into a deep freeze warehouse using the same cube. Deep freezes normally have a low number of SKUs and limited throughput at certain times. I can open the aisles as needed. We automated a very narrow aisle truck which acts like a crane. The system will open automatically to the location it needs to go and pick up a pallet. So with a little conveying technology in the back feeding in from your warehouse receiving points, you put the pallets in, the racks will open and the cranes will put them away.”

Robotic palletizing

Another SSI demo showed how orders could be robotically palletized according to a number of customer variables, including store configuration, load stability and order timeframe. A robot equipped with grippers placed cases on a pallet that sank to a lower level as each layer was built. It was then stretch wrapped at that lower level for shipment. Schmit sees this as a way to optimize truckloads and save transportation costs. “A robot can build higher and more stable palletloads than a human,” he concluded.

Smart sortation

At the Beumer exhibit, Hans-Jurgen Thommes, head of marketing and communications, spoke of the smartening of sortation. He demonstrated this concept in the form of a belt tray sorter that not only sorts but also detects the type of product it is conveying and sends it to the appropriate destination.

“This combines sortation and detection for large items,” he explained. He used the case of the HERMES Logistik Group, subsidiary of Hamburg’s OTTO Group and a leading provider of parcel shipping and transportation services: “Hermes has a system that reads both bar codes and handwritten addresses,” he said. “For mail order retail the critical thing is not time-to-delivery but the perfect order, with the right name and address.”

Lift trucks

A visit to CeMAT’s lift truck exhibits alone could have filled days. Alternative energy was the main topic of conversation. 

Linde Material Handling, for example, introduced a lift truck with a direct-injection hydrogen combustion engine. The 3-ton-capacity vehicle produces no emissions. Its pressure pump blows hydrogen directly into the engine’s combustion chamber, enabling the fuel to burn efficiently while helping the vehicle achieve high torques at low rotational speeds.

A company spokesperson said hydrogen vehicles will probably be introduced in the industrial truck sector before the automotive industry, but realistically, not much before 2015. Until then, Linde will continue to do field tests.

At the Jungheinrich exhibit, product specialist Michael v. Forstner acknowledged that hydrogen fuel cells have been capturing customers’ imaginations, but he opined that the technology does not represent his industry’s future.

“They’re very expensive and so much energy goes into the production of hydrogen,” he said. “We see the technology of the future as lithium ion cells. We look to total cost of ownership—how long you can drive and what about fueling time and zero emissions? You have to consider the whole energy delivery chain. Fifty percent of the yearly cost of the truck is energy. The rest is investment in repairs and maintenance. Lithium batteries are more expensive but will last longer—twice as long as standard batteries.”

At the Toyota exhibit, executive vice president Andrew Elliott, of Toyota Material Handling Europe, said the industry needs to look at all options, hybrids as well as alternative fuels. It also needs to stay in touch with customers.

“What we’re showing for the first time in Europe is the hybrid concept truck,” he explained. “We’re asking our customers if they’re ready for it. We’ve surveyed 100 customers so far asking if they’d consider it as part of their fleet. In Western Europe many of the larger users really understand the concept of the total value of a lift truck over time. We think businesses are changing more dynamically than 10 years ago. Therefore the need for trucks is changing more dynamically, as is the need for flexibility.”

Flexible is a good word to summarize all the technology displayed at CeMat. It was also a mental and physical requirement for any attendee looking to find and then describe for the folks back home the great ideas they now have.

Tom Andel is Editor-in-Chief of LM’s sister publication, Modern Materials Handling.