Apex Industrial Equipments

K. K. Nagar, Chennai, Tamil Nadu

With increased cost of land and construction of built up area, industries requiring to stock substantial volumes of their products or inputs, especially if they are diverse and palletized, are looking into material handling systems which maximize utilization of warehouses by volume in vertical stacking instead of by floor area, besides of course swift retrieval and stocking. This concept has become urgent in metros and mini metros, with spiralling cost of land and construction.

The above has been traditionally achieved by Fork Lifts, either battery or diesel operated operating in conjunction with an appropriately designed racking system. This method has the following disadvantages.

• Exhaust fumes causing pollution, if diesel Fork Lifts are engaged

·         Battery charging station at the location, if battery operated Fork Lifts are engaged

·         Specialist maintenance crew for both is must

·         Limitation in storage by height (limited by fork travel) reduces storage space by volume

·         Increased aisle width (consequent to turning radius of the fork lift), reduces storage space by area

In APEX, we have developed Single / Double Girder Stacker Cranes overcoming all above drawbacks. Essentially a stacker consists of -

• Main Girder spanning the entire ware-house with cross travel rails mounted atop.
• A pair of End Carriages on which the Main Girders rest.
• A motorized trolley moving along the main girders with a sub-trolley mounted atop the main trolley. The sub-trolley has a hoisting mechanism that can also rotate about its own axis.
• A rigid fixed mast suspended from the sub trolley.
• A movable mast with adjustable forks running on the fixed mast on rollers.

On this basic platform, several additional features can be incorporated to meet individual requirements, such as -

• Manual movement of sub-trolley
• Micro speeds on all motions
• Sub-hoisting of the movable mast
• Cross traverse of the fork assembly alone
• Manual or motorized fork gap adjustment
• Drives with Variable Frequency Control, ensuring ramping of acceleration and deceleration on all travel motions
• Cabin operation, with cabin movable mast or stationary at ground level

·         Fully computerised Automatic Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS) integrated with the      warehousing system

We are also in a position to supply the entire racking system in association with a partner specializing in the same.

We have supplied specialised trolleys to NEG Micon (India) Limited that travels in a curved track from one shed to another shed. Other heavy duty trolleys which are fully automatic were also supplied to many foundry units for ladle carrying purposes.