Faster, more flex­ible and kinder to the back: that is what our colleagues from Logis­tics at ebm-papst in Mulfingen have concluded about the ErgoPack Air. They no longer have to bend down when strap­ping pallets. As these have to be strapped at least twice, the employees had to bend twice per strap: once to guide the strap under the pallet to the other side, and once to pick it up on the other side and guide it upward. At this point, the two ends used to have to be welded with a heavy manual tool. So, this meant bending four times for one pallet. With 50 pallets a day and around 200 working days per year, this would mean 40,000 times. “Back­aches are almost inevitable,” says Boris Schulze, Sales Manager at ErgoPack, the manu­fac­turer of ergonomic devices for pallet strap­ping.

Conve­nient and fast strap­ping – an ErgoPack Air is also used at ebm-papst in Mulfingen. (Photo | ebm-papst)

The company, based in Lauingen, Bavaria, makes life much easier for logis­tics workers with devices such as the ErgoPack Air. “We want to allow the workers to strap pallets in an ergonomic, simple, safe and mobile way,” says Schulze. Every­thing starts at the touch of a button. Once the employee has moved the machine towards a pallet, it starts to auto-detect the pallet using a laser. Clicking on the joystick on the console moves out a chain lance that easily pushes under the pallet, regard­less of whether it is on the floor or raised. “We can deal with pallets with a depth of up to 2.4 meters,” says Schulze.

Once on the other side of the pallet, the lance moves upwards at a 90-degree angle and guides the strap­ping tape with it, which the employee then grabs and returns to the machine. There, the machine ‘reaches’ to the other end for them, and the band is welded using the fastening device on the ErgoPack Air. The ErgoPack was awarded the AGR seal by the Gesunder Rücken e. V. campaign (healthy backs campaign) for its back-friendly method.

Clicking on the joystick on the console moves out a chain lance that easily pushes under the pallet, regard­less of whether it is on the floor or raised. (Photo | ebm-papst)

The trans­mis­sion has to transfer forces quickly and reli­ably

There are EtaCrown angular gear­boxes from ebm-papst in the ErgoPack Air. For more than ten years, ErgoPack has been relying on the robust, space-saving crown gearbox, which has to reli­ably transfer torque from the motor to allow the chain to extend. The transmission’s partic­u­larly durable output shafts are made of hard­ened and ground case-hard­ened steel; the torque is trans­mitted via a feather key connec­tion as stan­dard. As the contact between the pinion and the output gear is a roller contact, hardly any fric­tion losses occur. “We have outstanding effi­ciency,” says Mario ­Rudmann, Regional Sales Manager at ebm-papst.

In logis­tics at ebm-papst, too, the specialist staff are pleased to no longer have to bend down and run around the package.