Modern generation of truck for greater performance and energy efficiency
Gustav Hensel GmbH & Co. KG is the market leader in innovative products and services for electrical installations for facility equipment of buildings. Founded in 1931, the company now has over 800 employees and operates on a global scale.
Passion for power
The defined goal was to boost performance and energy efficiency. Standing in the way of this was a 13-year-old narrow-aisle truck that the operator had to control manually to reach the storage locations. Aside from this, a greater lift height was required as the rack height in the new hall had more than doubled: to 11.5 metres.
RFID warehouse navigation
Intelligent truck management not only enables the trucks to communicate with the ground, but also with the warehouse management system. This information flows directly to the controller of the trucks. As such, a stacking order goes via WLAN directly to the logistics interface of the truck terminal and thus to the controller of the EKX 515 in use. The employee allows the EKX 515 to pick up the specified pallet with the swivel-traverse fork, confirms the stacking order and steers the truck into the relevant aisle, which the LMS has selected according to the principle of either chaotic or dynamic storage.
What is particularly pleasing is the fact that the truck controller uses permanent truck route measurement and transponders to locate the aisles, so as a redundant system it offers an extremely high level of safety.
And safety plays a major role at Hensel; after all, around 240 warehouse operations are clocked up at peak times. That's when both high-bay warehouses are in constant operation, and that's in the truest sense of the word, as the EKX 515s are true marvels of endurance. They can complete two full shifts on a single battery charge without so much as a breather. It's easy to explain how this is possible: Both the regenerative braking and the lowering of the load are used to recover energy. To enable the operators to keep up with the trucks in terms of endurance, great importance was attributed to ergonomics, comfort and ease of use. The spacious cabin therefore has a wide entrance for easy access.
Safer and speedier with warehouse Navigation
"The main reason for choosing the EKX 515 was the better equipment that it offered – particularly the warehouse navigation, which saves us time and makes things safer", says Klaus Hüsch in providing a summary of the benefits. "Our new personal protection system integrated into the narrow-aisle trucks also helps increase safety. Furthermore, like the previous model, the trucks offer a high level of availability."