A new custom clamp from Kaup is helping one of Germany's leading breweries, Staatliche Hofbräuhaus München, known for its HB brand, hasten its international expansion.

Kaup's new 0.5T099 clamp

HB is exported to more than 40 countries, with kegs loaded in standard ISO containers at the brewery's new logistics centre, built in 2013. This was previously done by hand, with four employees taking up to four hours to correctly position all the kegs and fill a container.

Brewery management wanted to significantly accelerate this loading process in order to reduce the costs of downtime, hoping to load six kegs at a time.

As the kegs are not transported on pallets, conventional attachments - fork positioners and multi-pallet handlers - were not viable. Likewise, clamps, mainly drum clamps and keg clamps, could not be used because the required number of kegs could not be placed in the container to be loaded.

Kaup developed a new type of clamp to pick up the reusable kegs. The main components of 0.5T099 clamp are six spreading devices with two spreaders each. These devices are arranged on a boom which is lowered onto the kegs from above. Once positioned, the spreaders extend and pick up the load.

Inside the container, a Toyota Traigo 48 forklift drives to the designated place, lowers the kegs and releases the spreaders.

This solution has reduced loading time to around 90 minutes and requires only two HB employees.