14 January, 2021

New Electric Chain Hoist for Positioning Applications

Posted on 14 January, 202129 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Providing best-in-class safety and precision control, the new STAHL CraneSystems® STF electric chain hoist from Columbus McKinnon is specially designed for stepless lifting and positioning applications. Columbus McKinnon is a leading designer and manufacturer of motion control products, technologies, and services for material handling. Equipped with industry-leading Magnetek® IMPULSE®•G+ Mini drives, STF hoists provide infinitely variable speed for applications requiring precision control, ensuring greater operator safety and lower stress on the crane mechanical and control components.

“The STF hoist combines the high-performance and reliability you expect from a STAHL CraneSystems chain hoist with industry-leading design and control features Magnetek provides,” said Marc Döttling, STAHL CraneSystems Product Manager. “Since the frequency inverter can be connected to field bus systems, such as Modbus, Profibus, or Ethernet, the STF chain hoist is an important step towards Industry 4.0. The control technology of the IMPULSE drive not only enables precision movement, but also provides valuable diagnostic and performance information, such as hoist status, through communication with IoT networks.”

The STF hoist also offers increased safety. If the hoist controls detect unintentional movement, for example the motor brake slips under load, the hoist drive will stop, and it can no longer be operated. This helps prevent the load from dropping and potentially damaging equipment and injuring the operator. In addition, an overspeed protection device prevents the motor from exceeding its maximum allowable speed range in the event of a drive malfunction, which protects the hoist against a possible load drop.

The hoist features a 1024 PPR encoder with a simplified mounting for reliable feedback in rugged operation and permits rapid evaluation of speed signals. The quick programming feature of the Magnetek frequency inverter paired with the ease of chain hoist commissioning gives customers a safe, highly reliable, and simple plug-and-play application.

Like all STF chain hoists, the new variable speed model is designed for ambient temperatures from -10° C to 40° C (14°F to 104°F), optionally up to 50°C (122°F) and is suitable for all available mains voltages with a large number of adaptation options.

In addition, the STF chain hoist meets the special requirements of protection class IP54 (optional IP65 / IP67 for outdoor use), which prevents the ingress of water and moisture. The STF is also extremely durable and maintenance friendly, featuring hard-wired control elements in place of commonly used board controls.

The STF is available in EMEA, APAC, and Latin America. For more information on the STAHL CraneSystems and Magnetek product portfolios, visit www.columbusmckinnon.com.

New Electric Chain Hoist for Positioning Applications

Posted on 14 January, 202129 July, 2025 by Keith McKinley

The STF is available in EMEA, APAC, and Latin America. For more information on the STAHL CraneSystems and Magnetek product portfolios, visit www.columbusmckinnon.com.

FTL and Groupage Contract Win with Conglomerate

Posted on 14 January, 2021 by David Priestman

GEFCO UK has been awarded a three-year contract with a multinational conglomerate, specialising in science-based technologies, to provide FTL and groupage services to its consumer goods and healthcare business areas.

The contract award comes as part of GEFCO UK’s plans to explore new market sectors and push for further diversification across its client portfolio. The new client, a US-headquartered, science-based technology company, works across a number of business areas, including industry, worker safety, US health care, and consumer goods.

Already an overland FTL/LTL customer of GEFCO Group in several other international markets, the new client has partnered with GEFCO UK following a RFQ process which began in Q4 2019 and entered its final negotiation phase during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amid the challenging business landscape, much of the contract discussions took place remotely from March with mutual commitment to a flexible approach to negotiations.

GEFCO UK is providing domestic next day part and full trailer loads, with daily collections from the company’s distribution centre in Rugby equating to an average volume of 150 shipments per day. Further ad hoc collections will be made from a second site in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham.

Vicky Arnold, Sales Director at GEFCO UK Ltd. said: “Our new partnership comes as our business looks to expand and diversify its offering, the importance of which has been underlined by the current COVID-19 situation. As such, this is a significant opportunity for GEFCO UK to demonstrate our flexibility and commitment to outstanding customer service during these challenging times. We’re thrilled to be able to support our new client’s operations in the UK and hope to become a valuable and trusted partner for them.”

FTL and Groupage Contract Win with Conglomerate

Posted on 14 January, 20217 August, 2025 by David Priestman

New High Bay Cold Storage Facility

Posted on 14 January, 202129 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Kloosterboer, one of the leading logistics service providers in Western Europe, commissioned SSI Schaefer with the supply and construction of steelwork for an impressive deep-freeze warehouse located in Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The logistics service provider offers innovative and sustainable supply chain solutions for temperature-controlled storage and distribution of food related products, such as fish, meat, fruit, fruit juice and juice concentrate, milk and potato products. SSI Schaefer has proven to be a reliable partner in past joint projects, which led to the awarded project.

A fully automatic, deep-freeze logistics center will call the City Terminal Rotterdam home – Cool Port 2. SSI Schaefer will supply about 4,100 tons of steel to erect a 6-aisle high bay warehouse with impressive dimensions too; 69 m length, 139 m width and 41 m height. The high bay warehouse consists of a silo design with the lateral walls and roof cover attached directly to the steelwork. Being a steelwork supplier, SSI Schaefer has erected numerous high bay warehouses with this type of silo design worldwide. Since Kloosterboer already did several successful projects with SSI Schaefer, it was an easy decision to award the contract to the reliable intralogistics experts.

The requirements of the British sustainability certificate BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) are adhered to during the construction. SSI Schaefer has designed the roof construction of the high bay warehouse for a future photovoltaic system for additional energy savings. The roof will be able to accommodate 2,700 solar modules.

With a storage capacity of 60,000 pallets in Cool Port 2, Kloosterboer will serve a variety of customers. The construction of the steelwork has started in fall 2020, the completion is scheduled for summer 2021. The deep-freeze warehouse will be commissioned in January 2022.

New High Bay Cold Storage Facility

Posted on 14 January, 202129 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Commissioning a System From Over 4000 Miles Away

Posted on 14 January, 202125 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Thanks to digitalisation, it is no longer unusual to parametise and commission single components remotely. BEUMER Group thinks ahead and, for the first time, commissions a complete packaging line including palletiser – from a distance of over 4,000 kilometres.

Helping customers in the event of faults or shutdowns of existing systems is no problem for BEUMER Group – even from a distance. The system provider was confronted with a completely new situation when a planned commissioning, which involves the dispatch of service personnel to the site, could not be carried out due to travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. BEUMER Group was flexible and set the course for “remote commissioning” – commissioning from a distance.

“The trigger was clearly the pandemic,” explains Peter Teichrib, a department manager in Engineering at BEUMER Group. However, this is not the only scenario that requires BEUMER’s new service remote commissioning. Everything that makes personal access to systems and users difficult or impossible requires new solutions.

As a concrete example, Teichrib mentions the packaging line of the cement manufacturer Norm LLC in Azerbaijan, which was almost completely erected on site. This line consists of two bag transport systems, the layer palletiser BEUMER paletpac 5000 and the BEUMER stretch hood A packaging line. “All components were already completely installed. Only some electrical installations and commissioning still had to be carried out when our experts had to leave the country due to the worldwide travel warning”. A delicate situation for the customer who has already included the capacity of the new packaging line in his calculations. If the line does not start up, the customer faces the thread of delivery bottlenecks and loss of market share.

Test run required
BEUMER Group decided to launch remote commissioning as a pilot project. “The conditions were exceptionally good, which certainly cannot be taken for granted,” emphasises Teichrib. In general, a number of conditions must be met before the “remote commissioning” project can even be considered. The system must be tested in-house in advance. “With this system, we had indeed carried out an extended in-house commissioning, as the BEUMER paletpac 5000 was running with the new PLC S7-1500 for the first time,” says the department manager. “We wanted to make sure that everything would work perfectly later. Finally, it was this circumstance that made remote commissioning possible in the first place.” BEUMER Group also recommends to supply the BEUMER stretch hood with the film tested in advance. This way, possible differences in film quality can be excluded as a source of problems during commissioning.

Know how meets technology
In general the customer needs qualified maintenance and operating personnel who is preferably familiar with BEUMER systems. This is another prerequisite for successful remote commissioning. On the hardware side, several IP cameras provide the necessary overview of the complete system, while BEUMER Smart Glasses, specially developed data glasses, connect the BEUMER experts audiovisually to the user on site. “A broadband Internet connection is, of course, required,” says Teichrib. The data glasses allow a detailed view: The BEUMER Customer Support sees the same thing as the wearer on site and can directly specify the correct actions to be taken. In this way, the user is guided step by step through the commissioning process.

The cameras and BEUMER Smart Glasses are part of the plug-and-play set for remote commissioning. This also includes a WLAN router for the BEUMER Smart Glasses and a VPN client installed on an mGuard router. The IP cameras must be connected via LAN cable to ensure sufficient image quality and stable transmission. “First, we installed the hardware and software components in our factory and tested the configuration. The complete package has been shipped to Norm LLC,” says Teichrib. This procedure has proven itself and is also planned for future remote commissioning projects.

Keeping the overview
BEUMER Group set up a separate back office for this project at short notice: Using four monitors and a laptop, the service staff always had an overview of the images from the IP cameras, the field of view of the BEUMER Smart Glasses and the data of the system sent via the VPN client.

“Broadband Internet access, technology and know-how – at Norm LLC we encountered ideal conditions, which we made the best possible use of,” explains the department manager. “Within a very short time we were able to develop a concept that will guide us safely and reliably through future remote commissioning projects. Standardised processes enable us to eliminate sources of error and offer our customers a reliable service – quickly and flexibly.”

Regardless of external circumstances: If BEUMER Group digitally takes the users by the hand via “remote commissioning”, the understanding and know-how of the systems grow. This motivates the customer’s personnel on site, a fact from which the user benefits as much as BEUMER Group – a better understanding of the system will significantly simplify future remote maintenance and services.
The remote commissioning of the packaging line at Norm LLC has shown that with adequate framework conditions, such as well-trained maintenance personnel and technically high-quality IT equipment, new ground can be broken. BEUMER Group’s technology and competence have impressively confirmed this.

New Connectivity for Truck Undermount Refrigeration Units

Posted on 14 January, 2021 by David Priestman

Thermo King®, a leader in transport temperature control solutions and a brand of Trane Technologies, today announced the introduction of new connectivity functionalities to its undermount self-powered truck refrigeration units. The Thermo King UT-Series units can now receive improved level of real time intelligence thanks to the TK BlueBox communication device and connectivity technology.

TK BlueBox communication device and Bluetooth® connectivity provides full, 24/7 visibility of the unit and load condition, remote monitoring and proactive control:

Bluetooth enables the users within the connection’s range to remotely manage defrost, pre-trip, set point and additional operating mode settings.
The unit can also be accessed and managed remotely from anywhere in the world through an internet connection as part of the Thermo King TracKing™ offering.
The TK BlueBox telematics system can be accessed remotely through a free TK Reefer app on smart phone or Bluetooth-enabled device. This provides two-way communication that allows real-time unit management and access to critical data to ensure that the load is protected at all times.

“The TK BlueBox has already been available for our T-Series units. Now it’s also compatible with our under-mount, UT-Series range,” said Davide Previsdomini product manager at Thermo King. “Fleet managers and drivers will be able to remotely access vital unit data and get real-time notifications to ensure that the load is protected at all times and the unit is running at its most efficient. If they see something out of the ordinary, they can instantly address the issue to avoid any negative impact to the load.”

Thermo King UT-Series units already in operation, including UT SPECTRUM, UT XTREME HIGH AMBIENT, UT-Hybrid models can also start benefiting from the Thermo King Connected Solutions offering thanks to a quick installation of the TK BlueBox at one of the Thermo King dealers.

New Connectivity for Truck Undermount Refrigeration Units

Posted on 14 January, 2021 by Keith McKinley

TK BlueBox communication device and Bluetooth® connectivity provides full, 24/7 visibility of the unit and load condition, remote monitoring and proactive control:

Bluetooth enables the users within the connection’s range to remotely manage defrost, pre-trip, set point and additional operating mode settings.
The unit can also be accessed and managed remotely from anywhere in the world through an internet connection as part of the Thermo King TracKing™ offering.
The TK BlueBox telematics system can be accessed remotely through a free TK Reefer app on smart phone or Bluetooth-enabled device. This provides two-way communication that allows real-time unit management and access to critical data to ensure that the load is protected at all times.

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