Faust Brewery
Beverage logistics without multiple pallet handlers for forklifts? That's been unthinkable for decades. KAUP develops and produces these attachments with two, three or four pairs of forks and a load capacity of up to 12 t. The Faust Brewery in Miltenberg has been using two multiple pallet handlers from the large KAUP product range for several years.
Mechanical engineering for hops and yellow boxes
Things are very busy at the Faust Brewery's depot in Miltenberg am Main. Some HGVs are arriving, delivery trucks are leaving the yard. Sometimes it's hops which require loading, sometimes it's barrels. However, as so often it's the yellow crates belonging to the Faust Brewery which dominate on this spring morning. The Faust Brewery is a regionally-based brewery from Untermain in Bavaria or, as they say around here, "Churfranken". With 50 employees Faust is verily no heavyweight in the industry - despite this it was 'Brewery of the year 2018'. They don't really want to be a heavyweight here anyway. They much prefer to let their beer speak for itself, and this ranges from classical pils through pale ale and up to hip craft beer. The family company is quite happy with being well-known and famous in the region following its slogan of: "Faust. That's our secret."
Brewing in the old town - filling on the industrial estate
The brewery has many awards, and has been working at the absolute limit of its capacities for several years now - with one of Faust's peculiarities, which actually does not prevent further growth. This is the division of production - in other words brewing itself and filling/shipment. Whereas the master brewers carry out their prize-winning work in the so-called "Schwarzviertel" of the historic old town of Miltenberg, filling takes place at a different location: on an industrial estate at the edge of town. The depot is not as big as we might be familiar with at other breweries. If three HGVs are in the yard at Faust there isn't much space for the two Linde E30-600 forklifts used for daily work here. They have been fitted with attachments made by KAUP. The choice of attachment is typical for the application here: multiple pallet clamps or multiple pallet handlers. This is what the machine manufacturer from neighbouring Aschaffenburg calls its products. Faust is currently using a 3T429 double pallet handler and a 3T429B-1-2-3 triple pallet handler - at least seven hours every day. They are often outside in all weathers and working on slightly uneven floors. Sometimes they handle fulls, sometimes empties.
"We really work both devices hard" says Jochen Schell, who is responsible for shipment & disposition at Faust "and that's been going on for four and seven years respectively." There are several reasons why the attachments still manage their daily workload: maintenance-friendly, sophisticated construction and customer proximity allied to good service. This also explains why Mr Schell is so satisfied with the attachments. "KAUP is the best thing that could have happened to us."
Series fittings for attachments is sufficient
The attachments don't require particularly wide-ranging adaptation. They are already well-prepared for their work straight from the factory. This means that the opening range is just as much a standard feature as the fork lengths and sideshifts. However, there are still two small modifications - one on each device. The double pallet clamp - as both the market and users like to call them - has reinforced load backrests to prevent 'bending" during reverse driving. "Our drivers have to look out for an awful lot of things at the same time" is how Mr Schell explains the modification, "and it's not entirely unusual to get stuck somewhere." The modified load backrests can put up with this, and nothing tears off or bends.
The modification to the triple pallet handler, on the other hand, meets the needs of the large attachment dimensions. There are conspicuous yellow flags at the end of each of the left-hand and right-hand clamp bodies. "That makes manoeuvring so much easier" said Mr Schell, who is obviously still very enthusiastic about the simple modification to the T429B-1-2-3 even several years after it started work. "You can see exactly where the machine stops at first sight" said the Faust shipping professional, "and that accelerates our processes enormously. We simply save an awful lot of time every day with this machine." Another positive effect is that the danger of accidents for the driver is decreased, downtime is reduced.
But why did the Faust Brewery purchase such a relatively large attachment for the restricted depot in the first place? Mr Schell explains the initial situation. "At the time we wanted to test the new T429C double pallet clamp so that we could fit it to a new forklift. But we also discussed other solutions with KAUP before the test deployment. One of these was the triple clamp. And in the end we decided to buy that." The biggest advantage was the increase in variability. If it's necessary to quickly load an HGV with fulls, loading three pallets at once accelerates the loading process. If, on the other hand, just one single pallet needs to be loaded onto a courier transport, the three pairs of forks can quickly be pushed together for pickup.
Customer:
The Faust brewery is a brewery with a long tradition. Founded in 1654, the brewery has been run by the fourth generation of Faust family members since 1996.
Head office: Miltenberg, Germany
Industry: Beverage industry
Website: faust.de