Open Shuttle Fork takes pallet transport to a new level at Fronius

At Fronius’ Sattledt site in Upper Austria, 16 Open Shuttle Fork robots have been brought in to help supply materials to the production area and transport finished products to the outgoing goods area. These autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) for pallet transport have been added to the company’s existing Open Shuttle fleet, which has been used successfully in its inverter manufacturing operations for some time now. 

The Sattledt site is where Fronius manufactures welding equipment for industry, inverters for photovoltaic systems, and charging devices for forklift trucks. In 2022, the existing manufacturing facilities (a hall covering 41,000 m²) were expanded with a new 28,000 m² production hall. This posed a new challenge: How to link all parts of the premises with one another in an efficient way. The perfect solution was found in the Open Shuttle Fork, an AMR with lifting forks designed for transporting pallets.

Bolstering the existing fleet

A longstanding user of Open Shuttle machines, Fronius already had a fleet of 11 for transporting containers. These have been used to carry inverters to the test stations and on to the packaging line on a time-phased basis. However, the company still needed an efficient solution for taking pallets from the incoming goods area to the production area, and for transporting finished products – also on pallets – to the outgoing goods warehouse. These tasks are now being performed automatically by 16 Open Shuttle Fork AMRs. “We have been using the Open Shuttles for a number of years now,” says Peter Hubl, Team Leader for Logistics Automation Maintenance at Fronius International GmbH, adding “We can have these running alongside the Open Shuttle Fork machines, so we can supply the production area in a better and more targeted way”.

All transport controlled by the same software

The Open Shuttle fleet is controlled centrally using the software KiSoft FCS (Fleet Control System), which is connected to Fronius’ system through an interface. Transport orders are issued via tablets, using a graphical user interface developed specially for Fronius. Transport orders for the entire Open Shuttle fleet or for manually operated forklifts can be entered on these tablets, which are located at the collection points. Since the forklift operators are provided with tablets too, they can enter or accept orders on the same system. This means that both automated and manual transport operations can be coordinated on a flexible basis. 

Optimised internal pallet transport

Fronius uses its Open Shuttle Fork AMRs to take care of all kinds of transport tasks: They collect pallets stacked with materials from the incoming goods warehouse and take them to whichever production line needs them. Once that step in the production process has been completed, the semi-finished products are taken on to the next line. Eventually, the finished machines and equipment are packed onto pallets ready to be transported off-site. The Open Shuttle Fork robots then take them to the outgoing goods warehouse, where they are deposited, packed up, and transferred to the automatic pallet storage system. The AMRs also carry out special transport operations, such as taking rubbish containers out to the waste bins. And if there are no more jobs to do for a while, they use the time to recharge their batteries – using Fronius charging devices of course.

Flexible and versatile

One of the main advantages of the Open Shuttles is their exceptional flexibility, as Peter Hubl from Fronius points out: “Thanks to this new automation solution, we have the flexibility to move and expand production lines ourselves. That makes us quicker and more cost-effective throughout our operations than we would be if we relied on other systems.” Another decisive factor for Fronius was the compact design of the Open Shuttle machines, which do not take up much space: This makes them highly versatile and means they can turn on the spot and move sideways, so there is no need to modify transport routes to accommodate them. In fact, using the Open Shuttles has meant that the width of the routes could be reduced, creating extra space for manufacturing.