TPT July 2023

TECHNOLOGY

Cut-to-size tube and pipe products with efficient sorting and distribution system

290 people. Today, the Hessian steel specialist owns more than 40 lorries to supply the entire steel and metal working industry in southern Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Thuringia with a complete range of steel products. The company’s core customer base consists of mechanical engineering, plant construction, metal and steel construction, machining companies and locksmith shops. The family-owned business supplies these companies with bar steel, tubes, structural steel and wide flange beams, flat products, quality and high-grade construction steel, bright steel, stainless steel, non-ferrous metals, flame-cut parts, reinforcing steel and steel mesh. The steel distributor emphasises not only the uniform appearance of its lorries but all machinery and systems should also correlate with the corporate design. “We store 28,000 tonnes of steel here on 42,000m 2 ,” said Marcel Finkernagel, director of administration and organisation at Bieber + Marburg. “However, we have been more than strictly a steel distributor for quite some time,” he said. “Our strength lies in processing – sawing, drilling, laser cutting in the 3D area, blasting, bending and flame cutting.” Since customer demands, particularly for sawing, have increased, the steel distributor needed to examine how to expand in this sector. The conclusion was a new sawing centre from KASTO. Thanks to many years of collaboration, Bieber + Marburg was familiar with KASTO products and expertise. The new KASTOcenter varioplus 4 sawing centre offers impressive dimensions with a length of 50m, a width of 7m and a height of 9m. “We have about 1,500 shelves and space for materials up to seven metres long and 330mm in diameter,” Marcel Finkernagel states. The long goods are stored and retrieved by an operating gantry crane (OGC) that travels above the shelf block at a speed of up to 60m per minute. A fully automatic production circular saw from the KASTOvariospeed series and a KASTOtec SC4 band saw with a connected pallet lift with space for eight Euro pallets are connected to the warehouse. At the circular saw, a KASTOsort robot is responsible for container management: eight pallet spaces on a carousel change automatically; the robot grips and loads the pallets independently. “This can be carried out even on the weekend, operator free and the corresponding label is already in the bin, eliminating the need for employee intervention during this time,” Finkernagel explained. The employees at Bieber + Marburg value the products from KASTO; they already operate four fully-automatic bandsaws and one Unicompact honeycomb storage system from the company based in southern Germany. “The last expansion of the high-bay storage system was about six years ago,” explained Marcel Finkernagel. “And two years ago, it was clear that to become more flexible when it comes to cut-products and minimise the set-up times, we would need to invest once again”, he added.

WHAT does a steel distributor do to supply its customers reliably with bespoke and in-series produced steel and non ferrous profiles while maintaining the narrowest tolerances? Bieber + Marburg has opted for a new sawing centre from KASTO. Equipped with this sawing centre, the company can significantly minimise its set-up times and respond more flexibly to customer needs. 19 th century Heinrich Bieber founded a small business that evolved into a successful company, which currently employs The robot at the saw loads the pallets automatically. The employees are then only responsible for securing the load

KASTO Maschinenbau GmbH & Co www.kasto.com

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JULY 2023