Contract announcement, October 2013. Since 2005 H+H Herrmann + Hieber has supplied the Tuttlingen plant of the Swabian foundry (SHW Automotive GmbH) with, and installed, a variety of equipment for automated material transport in the brake-disc production facility – most recently in January 2013. SHW wants the next automation step to be implemented without any stoppages.
As a producer of pumps and engine components, today SHW Automotive is one of the leading suppliers to the global automobile industry. At the plant in Tuttlingen-Ludwigstal blanks for brake discs are produced in the firm’s own foundry and – depending on contract – delivered directly as blanks or sent to the Neuhausen ob Eck site for machining to readiness for assembly.
The material flow at the Tuttlingen foundry is very largely automated. The cast blanks – at temperatures up to 100°C and weighing a maximum of 35 kilograms – are transported fully automatically to the various machining stations or to the dispatch area.
For the component transport now to be automated, roller tracks, sequential transport belts with rubberised rollers, units for transverse separation and other equipment has been installed, including all the drive technology and controls needed. Since production was not to be compromised during the assembly of the new equipment, H+H installed in advance a provisional component transport system which will cover the time required for assembly.