Interroll Tool Enables Less Planning Effort for Material Flow Solutions

With the inclusion of the new stacker crane and transfer cars in its planning software, Interroll has once again expanded the range of applications of the its Layouter Tool. With this application, which can be seamlessly integrated into the AutoCAD design program, planners and system integrators can now visualize even complex conveyor systems end-to-end at the click of a mouse and make them available for quotation and ordering processes. By digitalizing the necessary process chain, planning times for customers can be dramatically reduced—by up to 90 percent, depending on the initial situation.

The ability to visualize technical planning has always been one of the central requirements in the project business with modern material flow solutions. But even today, the path from the first plant design to the detailed technical project planning, which leads to the preparation of a quotation and the concrete award of the contract, is in most cases still characterized by time-consuming breaks in the work processes. For example, initial visualizations of the overall solution must later be broken down to all the required individual components of the desired plants. The fact that this process step can be avoided is demonstrated by the Layouter Tool that Interroll makes available free of charge to enable customers worldwide to shorten their planning phase significantly.

“With our application, which can be seamlessly integrated into AutoCAD as a plug-in, planners and system integrators can not only visualize the planned conveyor solution based on the desired parameters,” explains Marcus Dörr, Global Product Manager for the Modular Pallet Conveyer Platform (MPP) at Interroll. “The Layouter Tool also simultaneously specifies all the necessary technical components of the respective solution. In addition, the plug-and-play modularity of Interroll’s conveyor platforms ensures that the engineering effort required to put together the overall solution is eliminated”.

The advantages of this approach are impressive: Already with his first design, the AutoCAD user has all the technical information for the desired conveyor solution and, in the case of special framework agreements, even the necessary price information. This means that the planning data can easily be reused for the subsequent quotation or ordering process.

The Interroll Layouter Tool can be used for Interroll’s modular platform offers, such as the Modular Conveyor Platform (MCP), the MPP, or the company’s flow storage solutions. The free application is available as a plug-in for a full version of AutoCAD from version 2014. The Layouter Tool is compatible with Windows 7 to Windows 10; Microsoft Excel is required on the workstation computer.