Austral Bricks
Austral Bricks is one of the largest building materials manufacturers in Australia / Oceania. Among other attachments from KAUP, Austral Bricks also uses a special fork positioner: the 10T160IPZ-4/BOM/T180P.
Challenge 'Down under'
Austral Bricks has experienced high growth in recent years and plans to confirm this trend in the future. The handling capacity should be doubled for this. This is made possible by fully automated production facilities and agencies in all Australian states.
However, intralogistics must also be adapted to the increased production capacities. Increased output of stones, clinkers, etc. requires larger attachments that are robust enough to perform reliably even in a difficult environment.
KAUP Australia is the preferred supplier to Austral Bricks. These were usually special pack positioners that were able to pick up and transport four brick packs in parallel. In the course of expanding production, Austral Bricks required KAUP Australia to create an attachment that can transport up to eight brick packs in the future - four packs wide, two packs high.
Together with Austral Bricks and Linde Material Handling Australia, KAUP Australia and the KAUP Australia design department developed a new attachment that meets these requirements at very short notice. The integrated multiple Fork Positioner 10T160IPZ-4/BOM/T180P has been in use on a Linde H120 for the first time in Queensland since early 2018.
Very different factors had to be considered during development. For example, the fork design. A decisive factor for this: they should be designed so that they can be inserted directly into the brick packs. No clamping, no extracting. The forks had to be narrow, short, not too thick and yet stable for this. In addition, the fork backs heights were cushioned so that the bricks are not damaged during handling. For explanation: It is common in Australia that bricks are not transported on pallets but as bound packs. However, two rows of bricks are deliberately left removed in each pack in order to be able to handle the packs. The fork tines push into these openings.
Much more important than the fork design was the special pack positioning design. Each pack needs to move independently. To perform this function the KAUP Australia design team developed a special slide using ball bearings instead of traditional slides. For this reason, the carriage’s capacity was significantly strengthened. Each pair of forks now sits firmly on a fork carriage and the reduction in resistance meant the forks can be controlled with a much smaller cylinder. A special design that nonetheless reflects the basic design of the T160IZ: fork positioner with multiple pairs of forks and integrated sideshift. Although the 10T160IPZ-4/BOM/T180P is much more complex to implement.
Customer:
Austral Bricks is one of the largest building materials manufacturers in Australia / Oceania. The company is part of the Australian 'Brickworks' building materials brand network. Austral Bricks has been developing, producing and marketing cobblestones, bricks and many other types of brick for over a hundred years for the 5th continent and New Zealand.
Head Office: Horsley Park, Australia
Industry: Building materials industry
Website: australbricks.com.au