From simple transportation to difficult warehousing tasks: Schmitt has been working for a major automotive and commercial vehicle manufacturer for 20 years. © Shoemaker

"Time is a very important factor for the success of order processing. It would therefore have slowed us down enormously if we hadn't found a solution for speedy storage and retrieval," explains Benjamin Sommer. "Sometimes we would have spent a few minutes longer per load carrier, and minutes are an eternity in our job." Another aspect that had to be taken into account was the height of the fire protection doors within the warehouse complex: the mast of the new industrial trucks was not allowed to exceed a height of 4.40 meters.

Electric push drive compensates for fluctuations
Schöler Fördertechnik supplied a total of 25 new industrial trucks for the new order in Ötigheim. The three-tonne vehicles, pallet trucks and order pickers also include seven front stackers with a permissible lifting weight of five tons. The special feature of these vehicles is their ability to load double-deep. This means that the loading of the trucks is also accelerated here, as the vehicles can be filled twice as quickly for delivery to production.

The seven new reach trucks are all equipped with Dynamic Mast Control (DMC) in addition to the mast camera and lift height preselection. Schöler presented Linde Material Handling's driver assistance system to Schmitt. An electric thrust drive compensates for the movements of the mast and counteracts the fluctuations. With the acceleration sensor, a pressure and thrust sensor and a lift height measurement, the system automatically performs calculations to analyze which compensating impulse the motor needs to give and when.

After the sensors at the top of the mast have recorded the oscillating movements, the measuring units simultaneously determine the current lifting height and the weight of the load. Once the central controller unit has processed this data, it sends control signals to the electric thrust drive. This compensates for the dynamic pendulum movements and the deflection of the mast with targeted counter-movements. The components work completely in the background and the driver of the reach truck does not have to actively intervene in the process.

The reach trucks at Schmitt are also equipped with fork positioners. To ensure goods are picked up easily and safely, the forks can be moved together or apart to suit the different load carriers. "The fork positioners provide a larger support surface for transporting the extra-wide materials at Schmitt," explains Christian Schäfer, Sales Consultant at Schöler. "The reach trucks are also equipped with automatic retraction. As soon as a load is lifted, the forward deflection of the mast is immediately compensated for by retracting the mast." The automatic retraction controls the lift mast on the industrial truck and ensures stacking.

High handling capacity despite heavy loads
"In Ötigheim, we can now store components at heights of up to 9.13 meters without any loss of time," summarizes Benjamin Sommer. "The DMC technology is the ideal solution for our requirements. The reach truck operator has a better feeling and at the same time we can increase the handling capacity for our customer." Schmitt also focuses on protecting the driver: thanks to the decoupled platform on which the seating area is located, impacts from sleepers are balanced out and not passed on to the driver.

In combination with an air-sprung seat, fatigue-free working is made possible. Each driver can adjust the control console to the height and length that suits them best. Thanks to the armored glass roof, there are no struts in the operator's field of vision. as