MHD MATERIALS HANDLING SEW Eurodrive looks behind the scenes to improve materials handling operations.
PUTTING DRIVE TECHNOLOGY ON THE MAP
SEW Eurodrive has extensive experience in drive technology warehousing and parcel and post industries, here the company offers a sneak peek of the backbone of material handling solutions and associated infrastructure.
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s consumer demands increase, there is more pressure than ever on material handling systems and processes to deliver and continuously meet expectations without fail. According to SEW Eurodrive it’s time to think more carefully about what takes place behind the scenes and start to reap the benefits of a well thought out material handling system. “When it comes to materials handling, it’s important to not just think about the now, but what your future demand may look like. This has been demonstrated with the increase in demand on grocery and consumables around the COVID-19 situation,” Osem Jibrail, National Industry Specialist Airports & Parcel Logistics at SEW Eurodrive says. While many organisations design a system based on current demand, SEW outlines that it’s important to map out and study how future growth may impact those systems from a throughput and performance-based perspectives, as well as a component level perspective. 52 | MHD MAY 2020
When it comes to processes and component selections, it’s important to consider a number of different aspects. Anything from electrical, mechanical or control device components all play a major role in the profitability, flexibility and availability of the system to and for operations. How suitable the nominated drive technology and communication infrastructure implemented into a material handling system, is said to be proportional to the success of the system and its ability to fulfil its intended purpose. Additional aspects such as system sustainability and subsequent maintenance costs & efforts, are topics that should play a vital role in selecting a suitable drive system, as opposed to mainly focusing on the initial costs and outlays along. Another aspect to consider is system performance at the component level. Drilling down into the data feedback concept from a Drive and Sensor level, not
just for real time monitoring and event generation, but also for historical record keeping, benchmarking and therefore event predictions and forecasting. With this in mind, the drive systems’ capabilities of data transmission, monitoring and handling is somewhat of a crucial building block for future proofing. “At SEW Eurodrive, we work on staying as involved as possible in the project design and implementation phases with our customers, so that we are able to assist in cost savings and efficiency gains and drive system optimisation,” Osem says. At SEW recognise that its endcustomers are the ones who are left to operate, cover and maintain the sold and commissioned drive systems and other components, therefore the business is eager to make their technical, operational and financial experiences as pleasant and profitable as possible, now and throughout the complete life cycle of their investment. ■
