Drives & Controls September 2022

The topic of Industry 4.0 poses new challenges for data communication: Short transmission times, high availability, real-time and, above all, high reliability are more important than ever. Networks must be monitored to detect signs of vulnerabilities in good time, ideally before a malfunction occurs. High-performance infrastructure components such as switches that monitor network quality while also storing data and visualizing and generating alerts play an important role in this context, for example in modern omni-channel logistics centers. Puma, one of the world's leading brands of sports footwear, apparel and accessories, invested in a new European central warehouse, which went into operation in April 2021. Conveniently located on the A3 nearWürzburg, the Geiselwind site now serves various distribution channels and handles orders from all over Europe. This is made possible by the efficient, highly automated intralogistics of the new central warehouse, which was supplied by the Austrian intralogistics specialist TGW Logistics Group with headquarters in Marchtrenk (Austria). Shuttle systemwith high performance lifters The centerpiece of the solution is the Stingray Shuttle systemwith over 700,000 storage locations which stores and retrieves new and returned goods on product-friendly trays fully automatically and supplies the manual picking workstations. The heart of the solution is the Stingray shuttle systemwith over 700,000 storage locations, which automatically stores and retrieves new and returned goods on product-friendly trays The total length of the energy-efficient conveyor system linking all areas is more than 21km. 24 high-performance lifters with one or two independently movable lifting tables ensure the correct allocation of the shuttles to the individual levels of the rack in order to reach the storage locations with maximum efficiency and performance. Like all other components of the intralogistics system in the central warehouse, the lifters also communicate with the higher-level controller via PROFINET. This communication must be safe and reliable to ensure that the highly automated warehouse technology runs smoothly without unscheduled downtime. Even the smallest anomalies must therefore be detected so that "real" errors do not occur in the first place. This task is performed on the lifters by switches from network specialist Indu-Sol. The PROmesh P9s take care of both network and application monitoring. Depending on the number of lifting tables, two to three of these "smart managers" are now in use per lifter. Thanks to their dimensions of just 105 mm high, 49 mmwide and 122 mm deep, the switches, which are designed for DIN rail mounting, fit easily into the control cabinet of the lifters, which also had to be designed as compactly as possible. n CASE STUDY Industrial Ethernet switchmonitors communication in the logistics centre PROmesh P9 for a strong network Scan the QR code to read the full article