Grounding brackets and rotary units

“A good deal of tact is required here,” says Thomas Herzig, pointing to the individual workstations. The employees at the worktables there are highly concentrated, because the inside of a socket outlet is complex: It contains a large number of contacts and springs. Products such as the SCHUKO® socket outlet from the JUNG company in Schalksmühle have stood for the highest safety and quality “Made in Germany” for over 100 years.

From the individual part to the finished socket outlet, 25 work steps are necessary, a large part of which is automated: automatic punching machines form the metal parts and automatic assembly machines process the larger components. “The particularly tricky steps, however, are done by hand,” Herzig explains. The trained toolmaker is a safety specialist and ensures the right workplace equipment in production.

Height-adjustable worktables, ergonomic floor plates and appropriate lighting are the essential measures. “At many workplaces, a lifting aid from EXPRESSO is also part of the package,” Herzig adds. After all, the many individual parts from which a socket is assembled are transported in various containers such as cardboard boxes, plastic crates, and metal mesh baskets. “The lifts make them easy to lift and stack,” he knows from experience. “But they also allow material to be poured out.” At the side of one of the assembly lines, a lift2move with a rotating unit has its place. It is used to handle grounding brackets that have to be constantly fed to the running machines. Using the forks of the lift, the employee effortlessly picks up a filled plastic crate from the stack and then moves it to the beginning of the conveyor belt. Using the control system, she positions the crate exactly at the right height and actuates the electric rotating unit. The crate tilts into a vertical position, so that the employee can now place the grounding brackets onto the conveyor belt in an upright position and without exerting any force. “This shows that we were able to adapt the lifts perfectly to the situation at hand,” the technology-enthusiastic safety expert is pleased to say. “We were also able to adjust the width of the chassis so that it can drive around the trolley along with the stack of crates.”

Herzig, who has been with JUNG since 1984, spent a long time looking for a suitable supplier of mobile handling and transport aids. In 2008, he met EXPRESSO sales representative Jürgen Neumann at a trade fair, who introduced him to the lift2move lifting aid with its modular design. Herzig was also impressed by the service with quickly available spare parts and suitable accessories as well as the personal approach. A trial order followed, and after the first test runs it was clear to everyone involved that the lift2move would make many work steps faster and easier. Since 2011, the lifts have been an integral part of production. And if a battery does need to be replaced, this is quickly solved with EXPRESSO. “Mr. Neumann and I sometimes take the short route,” smiles Thomas Herzig. “This saves me time, which as a trainer I am happy to invest in looking after our prospective mechatronics engineers.”