Mechanical Technology November-December 2016

⎪ Materials handling and minerals processing ⎪

Left: The 68-pallet deep racking lane of the bigger racking system. It is five levels high and 30 m wide. The smaller racking setup utilises 20-pallet lanes. Right: Designated forklift areas provide efficient loading and unloading points, and eliminate the need for forklifts to enter the lanes as in a conventional racking setup. This speeds up storage and retrieval, reduces damage to the racks and enhances warehouse safety.

whilst moving in the tunnels. Bumpers and stop points also help to avoid would- be accidents. The wifi-controlled terminal allows control of multiple shuttles from a Dell tablet and intuitive functioning means operators use push-button actions only in order to convey instructions. This storage system consists of four- pallet shuttles in two main aisles. A supplementary back-up pallet shuttle was issued on consignment, as was a rescue cart to assist in the event of battery fail-

ure. If repositioning or site transfers are required, the pallet shuttle is manually handled using a conventional reach truck. Before Phase 1 of the installation was complete, Intermodal realised the need for additional capacity sooner than anticipated. They commissioned APC Storage Solutions SA to install a planned Phase 2 installation as part of Phase 1. “We were sufficiently flexible to incor- porate the latter requirements into our installation,” Meyburgh points out, “and

we completed this part of the project in an operational environment.” Intermodal Cargo Solutions has now been a full year in production subsequent to implementation of APC Storage Solutions SA’s full maintenance agreement. The Customs Franchised Container Freight Station Company has not experienced any downtime on APC Storage Solutions SA’s pallet shuttles since the implementation of the mainte- nance agreement. q