There is an unbroken trend towards the partial or full automation of various processes in warehouse storage or in production supply. Small and medium-sized companies in particular are increasingly interested in the automation of warehouse and transport processes. That’s why the intralogistics system house STILL will be showing the latest solutions and systems from its iGo product program live at the CeMAT trade fair. This will allow visitors to experience for themselves, in a live presentation, systems such as the iGoEasy, which can be intuitively operated, installed and adapted by using an iPad.

Companies are focussing increasingly on the topic of automating logistics processes to design intralogistic goods flows more efficiently, to reduce costs or to proactively counteract the consequences of demographic development. However, many decision-makers dread at the high level of complexity in the planning and design, initial setting up and adaptation of today’s automation solutions, and the difficulty in calculating the investment costs for their procurement, maintenance and adaptation. Moreover, the requirements regarding logistics are changing and there is a demand for ever faster, flexible, adaptable solutions.

The Hamburg based STILL GmbH brings together under the name iGo a wide variety of intelligent automation solutions for intralogistics – regardless of whether the need is to equip a newly designed or an existing warehouse. Today STILL is one of the specialists in greatest demand worldwide in the area of automated warehouse solutions. This success is also due to the fact that STILL focuses on automating its own series production trucks. As a result the user receives not only products that are proven in everyday logistics use and round-the-clock service, but also maximum flexibility and high availability because all the trucks also remain manually operable. Thus operators can access their goods at any time, and as a result automation projects can be implemented while ongoing warehouse operations continue.

iGoSystems
iGoSystems comprises all the products offered for complex, customised automation solutions, consisting of the installation and combination of automated series production trucks and the corresponding engineering, navigation, route programming, master computers, project planning, commissioning and service. The entire intralogistics materials flow can be automated by using STILL series production trucks.

These converted series production trucks can be used to automate almost all the vertical and horizontal transport tasks that can be accomplished with classical industrial trucks. To do this, the trucks move on predetermined routes. Navigation takes place via various technologies, e.g. laser or magnetic point navigation, which STILL selects to meet the specific need. While personnel protection scanners guarantee the highest level of safety in every driving direction, the customised choice of the most appropriate sensors ensures precise pallet recognition. The master computer is the heart of the solution: it distributes the orders from the ERP or warehouse management system to the automated forklifts in an optimum way, undertakes the traffic control on the pre-programmed driving routes, visualises all the truck movements and monitors the battery charge states.

STILL has developed and implemented individually customised, fully integrated automation concepts in accordance with the specific requirements in a series of projects in various industrial sectors – from the food industry and logistics services providers to medical technology and the automobile industry. External systems such as stretchers or conveyors were also integrated into the overall solution at the same time.