Energy chains in order picking systems

Profile

• What was needed: E2/000 series energy chains and servo, bus, control and pneumatic cables from the chainflex product range, supplied as fully harnessed readychain systems
• Requirements: durable, functionally reliable, low-abrasion, space-saving, quiet energy supply
• Industry: mechanical engineering
• Success for the customer: installation time is reduced and necessary machine adaptations can be carried out easily

Problem

At the moment, there are almost 21,000 chemists in Germany. Demographic change is also making itself noticeable here. Their number is expected to level off at around 17,000 to 18,000 in the next few years. An individual chemist's has to be able to do more in the space it has available. In addition, the population is getting older. In this environment, automation plays an important role as layout and storage spaces vary considerably. Medication handling systems must be compact on the one hand, and modular on the other, to allow for easy expansion and safe supply.
This also applies to the customised order picking systems from Mach4 Automatisierungstechnik GmbH. The supplier in the field of medication logistics needed a solution for the energy supply of its systems, where speeds of up to 4m/s and acceleration of up to 2.5m/s can occur with a travel of up to² 17m. The travel speeds and accelerations are combined with a high continuous load. In a classic chemist's shop, the daily storage and retrieval operations amount to around 300; in hospitals, this can increase to up to 20,000 trips. Storage capacities in individual systems are therefore between 9,000 and 60,000 packages. Depending on the composition of the individual systems, between 150 and 1,200 packages can be delivered and between 300 and 8,700 retrieved per hour.

Solution

From day one, high-performance energy supply systems and cables from our energy chain range are used in the Mach4 systems. Specifically, e-chains from the E2/000 series are used, which are hinged on the inside and outside and are characterised by easy and versatile assembly.
Usually, between two and five fully harnessed energy chain "readychains", are used, which combine robustness and abrasion resistance and operate quietly with low vibration. Moreover, they need little installation space due to the small bend radii. This is very important in order to be able to use the space available in a medicine storage space most effectively. Because of the very small chain link pitch and the resulting reduced polygon effect, there is scarcely any vibration or shocks. As a result, the customers in the chemist's shops hardly notice anything about the picking processes that deliver the medicine as if by magic.
They contribute to the good technical data of the systems and at the same time minimise the installation effort.
But the cables themselves are also provided by us. At Mach4 , for example, functionally reliable servo, bus, control and pneumatic cables from the chainflex range ensure the required performance data for fast picking of the medication packaging.