Improved stockyard management

Morris Material Handling has developed its automatic position determining system to improve the efficiency of steel stockyard management. Based on automated systems designed for handling and tracking anything from a 100kg tote bin to a 40t container, it enables operators to place and retrieve any item in the minimum time from known and recorded positions, with access to real time stock status information.

The automatic position determination system was developed by the company’s in-house software development team, and in steel stockyard applications it is used with an EOT crane fitted with an automatic control unit. The ACU monitors the position of the crane grab in all three axes in real time and communicates the data to a central control point.

The crane operator, using either a hand held unit or a cab mounted touch screen, can then check information on the loads being handled. The types of information available include material content, weight, production history and designated forward plan. Using an on-board database linked to the base station, the operator can also use the hand held unit to identify and locate all the items currently in store. According to Morris, the process is equally effective with manually controlled crane installations and with fully automatic systems.