Pallet Transfer Machine

A leading automotive manufacturer came to Ahaus looking for a way to drastically reduce the cycle time that they were encountering when milling each one of the stamped aluminum sheets (used to make truck doors), one by one.

Ahaus designed and built a machine that eliminated this cycle time waste. When an operator loads a pallet, stacked with up to 400 flat sheets of stamped aluminum, onto one side of our machine, that stack is transferred into the center of the machine, where it is precisely located with our machine fixture. The stack is then moved (perpendicularly to the original transfer) into the customer’s machine to be milled. Once finished, it retraces its path back out of the customer’s milling machine and back to its original starting point. Another stack begins this same cycle on the opposite side of the machine while the first stack is being unloaded. This cycle continues in perpetuity.

Most of the machine is powered by a robust hydraulic system that physically transfers the parts and clamps them into place as they move through the process. That system is accompanied by several electronic sensors that detect whether the parts are in the proper location and whether the hydraulic system is operating at the proper pressure.

Ahaus built the first of these machines in 2016. This 2017 project is a near duplicate, with some minor upgrades to the hydraulic system. The customer is very pleased with our output and has mentioned ordering at least one, maybe two, more of these machines in the near future.