Fluid-o-tech

Fluid-o-Tech is a leading Italian company in the design and production of positive displacement pumps and fluid management systems in various sectors, including food-service, medical, industrial and automotive.

The project, carried out in partnership with Toyota Material Handling IT – Logistics Solutions, stems from the customer’s need to maximize the number of load units stored in the system and to perfect the preparation activities (picking) necessary to serve the production lines. To obtain these results, it was decided to create a narrow-lane logistics environment and a semi-automation system based on trilateral trolleys.

The system is based on semi-automation: the operator on board the trilateral only takes care of lane changes, since the rest of the movements are managed by the truck using ground guides and sensors. The trilateral automatically positions itself in front of the correct location and awaits the picking and depositing activities carried out by the operator. It is therefore a system which, beyond general efficiency, grants the company a certain degree of independence from people for the execution of complex operations.

Stesi supplied the general plant supervisor (Silwa®), who deals with the management of the flow of materials to and from the production, acceptance, storage and shipping areas. Furthermore, the company has dealt with the integration both with semi-automatic storage systems, i.e. with trilateral forklifts, and with totally autonomous AGV systems that are used to sort the goods to the various work centres. The system also verifies that the trilateral and the AGV are not in the same area, for an additional level of safety for men and vehicles.