STILL: Automated routing systems ensure efficiency, ergonomics and added value

Across all industries, companies are faced with the growing challenge of using resources in an optimized, profitable and sustainable manner in order to survive in dynamic market environments. Especially in logistics, the question often arises: Man or machine? Forklift-free production logistics with automated routing systems is a vivid example of how the one does not exclude the other. On the contrary, the synergy of both components ensures high efficiency and the value-adding and health-promoting deployment of employees*. With 100 years of experience in designing and implementing intelligent intralogistics solutions, STILL is a competent and innovative partner when it comes to optimising production logistics and successfully shaping the future with automated processes.

Since the turn of the millennium, the term “route train system” has been synonymous in European and German circles of experts with lean processes and synchronised internal logistics. The way it works goes back to the milk run principle, which ensured the supply of food in the USA as early as the 1960s. Just as the milkman makes his rounds every morning, exchanging empty cans for full ones, production facilities are supplied with materials on time and as needed by means of towing vehicles. The disposal of materials or the further transport of partial products takes place in the same train.

The route train system systematically develops this idea further. Thanks to trolleys, which are pushed into frames attached to the towing vehicle, entire production lines can be supplied flexibly and quickly just in time or just in sequence. The perfect interplay of trolley and frame is an essential key to success. In addition to efficient and process-safe material supply and disposal, companies also benefit in terms of increased productivity, cost optimization and production individuality. The cyclically clocked supply over a constant route additionally ensures safety, internal traffic calming and working ergonomics.

Step by step: From the storage sheds of the port of Hamburg to the innovation industry of automobiles

More than ten years of experience in the development and implementation of innovative route haulage systems and over 70 years of competence in the development of powerful electric tractors make STILL a competent system provider for route haulage. In 2008 STILL once again lived up to its reputation as a pioneer in the intralogistics sector: together with the car manufacturer BMW the Hamburg company developed the
STILL LiftRunner and thus set the course in Germany for forklift-free production supply according to innovative lean principles. To this day the STILL LiftRunner is the measure of all things when it comes to route haulage systems and the basis of all further developments in the past ten years.

Just how early STILL recognized and implemented the concept of tow trucks and forklift-free logistics processes is shown by the development of the EK 2000 electric cart as early as 1946 and the introduction of the Muli-Mobil three-wheel tractor only a few years later. Even in the years of the economic miracle after the Second World War, this tractor pulled up to ten trailers through the Port of Hamburg. This makes the STILL LiftRunner with its innovative frames and trolleys as well as the patented transport and removal system the conceptual and technological development of one of the first successful products in STILL’s 100 year old company history.

It pulls automatically: Route pulling systems as drivers of automation

Across all industries, digital change – especially online trade – is leading to a dynamization of production and supply chains. Driverless transport systems are an efficient option to meet the requirements of flexibility, individualization and process reliability: In particular, partially or fully automated route trains take over production supply and load handling, supported by state-of-the-art navigation and control technologies. The advantages are obvious: flexible and perfectly synchronized production supply, optimized material stocks, minimization of errors and accidents, and demand-oriented personnel deployment are just a few of them.
Numerous STILL customers have long since made use of these possibilities and have converted their production supply to route train systems together with STILL’s intralogistics consultants. 100 years of experience in intralogistics combined with sound technological know-how and its own intralogistics consultancy make STILL the partner for logistics automation processes. This is also confirmed by external experts*: in 2019 the company received the coveted IFOY Award in the category “AGV & Intralogistics Robot” for the STILL LiftRunner with automated loading and unloading and the E.

Man and machine in ergonomic interaction

Even in the age of automation, qualified, healthy and motivated specialist personnel is one of the most important resources of successful companies. The example of the automated routing system clearly shows that automation does not mean saving jobs. Of course, automation is an entrepreneurial tool to meet challenges such as shortage of skilled workers, rising labor costs and high pressure to be flexible. However, it is much more important to make the best possible use of technological and human resources and to exploit synergies. If intelligent machines in production ensure safety and reliable processes and also take on physically heavy, repetitive work, this increases productivity and efficiency. At the same time, employees* benefit from improved working conditions and health protection, as well as more freedom for creative and responsible tasks thanks to automation. For example, a single person can take on the logistical responsibility for an entire production line instead of just a single process step.

For more information, please visit: https://www.still.de/