Hanssens Catering prepares meals for almost all schools in the Kortrijk area. Every day there are about 3000 containers in circulation: 1500 go outside, 1500 come back. An entire undertaking, which used to be done completely manually. However, that situation was no longer tenable. That is why Hanssens Catering invested in an automated warehouse.

Hanssens Catering uses a large automatic crane with a wide span to remove the containers for ready-to-eat school meals  from the warehouse and place them on the belt that carries them to transport. It must be set extremely accurately – down to the millimeter – to ensure that everything runs smoothly.
That movement is dynamically controlled by the Simatic ET 200SP remote I/O system CPU, which uses software functions such as gearing, superimposed move and absolute positioning. Everything is 100% accurate – no evidence, given the crane's large span and relatively small buckets.
The intelligent overlying system controls the automatic tap to get the hot meals to the customer on time. Due to the large span, the required accuracy and high speed, the motion instructions and the Sinamics S120 frequency converters prove their superiority here.
To be sure that the start-up of the new system would go smoothly, Siemens and Dynamics joined forces: a Siemens engineer came along to follow up the project and support the Dynamics team.

Hanssens Catering makes warehouse manageable with Siemens drives and motion technology