Alu-Point is a medium-sized company from Harsum in Lower Saxony, located between Hanover and Hildesheim, and has been a supplier of aluminum, non-ferrous metal, stainless steel and engineering plastics for more than 30 years. The company also offers machining and forming services for these materials. In addition to traditional machine, tool and mold construction, its customers also include automotive suppliers and suppliers to the aviation industry. Alu-Point also supplies the furniture and wood industries as well as the automation and packaging machine sector and manufacturers of measuring and medical technology.

Alu-Point uses the latest generation of saws to cut all materials to the tightest tolerances as required. In order to automate the saw feed and thus gain speed, the company was looking for a supplier who could implement an individual solution to this problem. "We want to automate our saw feed with a feeding system in order to save time and increase production," says Managing Director Thorsten Otte.

During its research, Alu-Point became aware of the Swabian company Eurotech. Eurotech offers integrated handling and transport solutions in the field of vacuum technology and develops customer-specific vacuum systems and components for automated handling tasks. The product portfolio includes vacuum components, vacuum lifting devices, vacuum suction boxes, vacuum robot equipment as well as testing and inspection devices.

Depositing the product in the saw feed © Eurotech

Systems for loading and unloading processing lines are a relief in many respects. They protect the health of the operators and ensure quality-compliant and efficient work. In order to optimize the workflow of its two single-axis saws from Schelling, these were to be fed automatically in future. The requirements that Alu-Point had for the new saw feed system were, on the one hand, the ability to handle Alu-Point's product portfolio with just one system. Secondly, it had to be possible to pick up different panels weighing up to 1.3 tons. The different formats also had to be picked up without any problems. Safe panel transport over a travel distance of more than 20 meters also had to be guaranteed. The feeding system also had to be easy to control.

The result is a feeding system that can control three positions of the sawing area from the output area. The 22-metre-long portal runs along the back of the saw and feeds it from the rear with panels made of a wide variety of panel materials such as aluminum, non-ferrous metals or engineering plastics.

The saw requests the material via the Profibus system. The portal monitors computer-controlled compliance with all specifications. A high-performance vacuum system is used to pick up the material. The mechanical pick-up of the panels prevents surface damage. An integrated separation solution ensures trouble-free processes and thus increases safety. as