This year at LogiMAT, K.Hartwall and Bosch Rexroth sealed their future collaboration with an official handshake. With the Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) ACTIVE Shuttle from Bosch Rexroth and the Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) A MATE® FreeLift from K.Hartwall, both companies are presenting a holistic, standardized and internal transport solution. With the ACTIVE Shuttle Management System (AMS), Bosch Rexroth will offer a VDA 5050-compatible fleet manager for both mobile robots.
K.Hartwall and Bosch Rexroth are combining their strengths from now on to ensure a flexible and future-proof internal material flow. With the AMR ACTIVE Shuttle from Bosch Rexroth and the AGV A MATE® FreeLift from K.Hartwall, both companies offer a standardized and versatile transport solution from small load carriers to pallets. At this year’s LogiMAT in Stuttgart, the two companies sealed the partnership with a handshake. “As part of the collaboration, we want to further advance the development of integrated solutions for intralogistics. Our technical focus areas and our portfolios complement each other perfectly,” says Sven Hamann, Head Product Development Business Unit Assembly Technology at Bosch Rexroth.
Internal material transport on a new level
ACTIVE Shuttle covers the fully automatic transport of KLT’s on dollies in the flow of materials and goods in order to move goods within production to supply workplaces and machines. The dollies are transported in a highly flexible and safe manner. The AGV A-MATE® FreeLift supports the transport of voluminous or consolidated materials in foldable cages, on pallets, adaptor pallets or roll containers. With its robust and slim design it ensures the safe automated load carrier transport also in confined spaces. „This means that our AGV can fulfil customer processes with the highest precision and reliability even under less-than-ideal conditions thus mapping a variety of different processes within intralogistics“, adds Eero Heinonen, Head of Automation at K.Hartwall.
Fleet Management based on VDA 5050 standards
The ACTIVE Shuttle Management System (AMS) from Bosch Rexroth will fully control and coordinate both systems and integrate them into the intralogistics system. With a higher-level control system such as the AMS, mobile robots from different manufacturers can be orchestrated and controlled within a fleet, bringing both process-related and technical synergy effects. The result is a technically sophisticated and optimally coordinated transport solution. “The deliberately open software concept in our mobile robots gives our customers the opportunity to make their intralogistics of tomorrow flexible, scalable and therefore economically viable in the shortest possible time,” Heinonen continues.
Both companies already unite a successful cooperation at various Bosch plants and other industrial companies. The ACTIVE Shuttle transports the dollies from K.Hartwall and thus ensures the supply of materials to production lines. Thanks to its slim design, it can drive directly into supermarket lanes and machine cells and automatically load and unload material. “Thanks to the future intensive cooperation with Bosch Rexroth, we can ideally combine the strengths of our products. This will open up numerous additional applications for our customers that will make an important contribution to optimizing their intralogistics processes,” concludes Jerker Hartwall, CEO at K.Hartwall.
