Reliable Connenction Between Production and High-Bay Warehouse

We developed a transfer car with eccentric lifting device and telescopic fork for an automotive supplier, serving as the central connection between production and the connected high-bay warehouse. The system’s task is to pick up just-in-sequence containers holding exhaust systems from various lift platforms and transport them operation safe to the conveyor system. From there, they are transferred to the high-bay warehouse for storage. The transfer to production follows the same principle, but in the reverse direction. The transfer car handles both individual and stacked containers with a maximum width of 3,800 mm, providing the flexibility required for ongoing series production.

Designed for Demanding Three-Shift Operation

Operating across three shifts places high demands on system reliability. A availability of 99 % was required, achieved through a robust design, low-maintenance components, and a targeted engineering of all drive elements. The eccentric lifting device enables precise height adjustment to the respective transfer points, while the telescopic fork ensures safe and position-accurate handover of the containers to the conveyor system. Combining both functions in a single mobile unit reduces the space required and eliminates additional interfaces in the material flow.

Custom Engineering for Large-Format Load Carriers

The dimensions of the load carriers, with a width of up to 3,800 mm, needed a design specifically tailored to this application. Both the pick-up geometry of the telescopic fork and the lifting kinematics of the eccentric lifting device were engineered to match the exact dimensions and weights of the JIS containers. The ability to handle stacked containers increases system flexibility and supports an efficient material flow in line with the pace of series production.

Are you planning a similar project or do you have specific requirements for transfer cars and load handling devices in your intralogistics? Contact our sales team. We will be happy to advise you and work with you to develop the right solution for your application.

Technical data:

• Stroke of telescopic fork unit: 1,950 + 30 mm

• Eccentric lifting height: 120 mm

• Lifting time: 3,5 m/s

• load weight: 1,000 kg

• Travel speed: 160 m/min

• Lowest discharge level: 483 mm (from the floor)

In a temperature-controlled pre-zone, a compact transfer car supplies buffer positions located between the conveyor system and the adjacent high-bay warehouse. The transfer car is belt-driven along the aisle and handles the lateral  movement along the buffer row reliably and with precise positioning. The entire system is designed to meet the specific requirements of a refrigerated area, where stable operating conditions and high system availability are equally critical.

Customer-Specific Design with Integrated Lifting Unit

The transfer car is equipped with an eccentric lifting unit and a telescopic fork unit, which together handle the transfer of load units between the conveyor system and the buffer positions. Load units are feed-in and -out via roller conveyors. The design was tailored precisely to the customer’s spatial and logistical requirements, allowing the system to integrate into the existing material flow without additional interfaces.

Controlled Sequence Between Buffer and High-Bay Warehouse

Using the telescopic fork unit mounted on the transfer car, load units are picked up from the conveyor system and placed onto one of the stationary buffer positions. After a defined dwell time, the load units are returned to the high-bay warehouse. This process runs fully automated and ensures a continuous, cycle-reliable material flow between the refrigerated area and the warehouse.

Are you planning a similar project or do you have specific requirements for your material flow? Contact our sales team. We will be happy to advise you and work with you to develop the right solution for your application.

Technical data:

• Stroke of telescopic fork unit: 1700 + 30 mm

• Eccentric lifting height: 100 mm

• Lifting time: 3 m/s

• load weight: 1,050 kg

• Travel speed: 60 m/min

• Lowest discharge level: 1.025 mm (from the floor)

For a gravity roller conveyor flow channel warehouse in the beverage industry, a high-performance transfer car was implemented. The infeed and outfeed of pallets are handled by separate transfer cars. This clear division of tasks ensures a continuous material flow.

High speed and precise acceleration

The transfer car is designed for high performance requirements. With an acceleration of 1 m/s² and a maximum speed of 160 m/min, pallets are transported quickly and reliably. These values enable a high pallet throughput and ensure an efficient material flow. Designing the transfer car as a towed version also ensures stable and safe movement, even at high loads and speeds.

Increased throughput – Faster truck handling

By combining high transport speed with optimized process control, the warehouse achieved a significantly increased throughput. Pallets are stored quickly and retrieved just as fast when needed. This leads to faster truck loading and dispatching – a decisive advantage in an industry where time slots are small and delivery reliability is critical.

Interested in a customized solution for your warehouse logistics?

Contact our sales team to find out how our transfer car systems can make your processes more efficient.

Technical data:

• Lifting height: 4913 mm

• load weight: 1000 kg

• Speed driving: 160 m/min

• Speed lifting: 60 m/min

• Lowest discharge level: 515 mm (from the floor)

• Highest discharge level: 4110 mm (from the floor)

The transfer car with eccentric lift and telescopic fork units is the ideal solution for handling timber stacks of different sizes. With a lifting height of 200 mm and three telescopic fork units – one with three prongs and two individually driven prongs – the unit offers maximum flexibility. This configuration allows stacks of timber of different sizes to be moved safely and efficiently. Each telescopic fork unit is individually driven and can be extended independently, ensuring flexible adaptation to the load. The transfer car is designed for continuous operation despite the difficult conditions caused by dust and chips in a wood processing plant.

Customisable for easy integration

The design of the transfer car takes into account the specific requirements of the end customer. An innovative disassembly concept allows parts of the superstructure to be removed and the height of the transfer car to be reduced. This makes it much easier to move the machine into the factory building – a crucial adaptation that minimises the logistical effort and accelerates the operational readiness. This is a solution that gives the customer maximum production flexibility.

Powerful and durable for continuous operation

Impact walls have been provided for the safe transport of timber stacks. The crossbars mounted in the transfer car, with integrated load cells, not only serve as a robust storage area, but also enable direct weight recording of the load – up to a capacity of 3740 kg. Faulty stacks of timber can therefore be immediately identified and rejected without affecting subsequent production processes.  These well-designed features make the unit ideal for intensive three-shift operation.

Get advice now!

Our experts are ready to help you optimise your transport processes. Contact our sales team today for more information and to find the perfect solution for your needs.

Technical data:

• Stroke of telescopic fork unit: 1875 + 30 mm

• Eccentric lifting height: 200 mm

• Lifting speed: 5 m/s

• load weight: 3.740 kg

• Travel speed: 48 m/min

• Lowest discharge level: 1.025 mm (from the floor)

AFB Anlagen- und Filterbau GmbH & Co. KG has successfully implemented three new transfer cars for a complex retrofit project in the food industry. For reasons of sustainability, existing systems were modernized or replaced with more efficient systems.
As part of this project, the existing transfer cars were replaced by our modern and individually manufactured transfer cars. A particular highlight of our new transfer cars is the integrated tilting roller conveyor, which not only significantly increases the efficiency but also the flexibility of material handling.
The project was successfully completed in close cooperation with a general contractor. We would like to say many thanks to our partner for this exciting project. Together we are setting new standards in intralogistics.

The challenge: low delivery height and tilting roller conveyor

One of the biggest challenges was the development of a transfer car that could work at a very low delivery height in order to effectively load the customer’s existing gravity roller conveyors. AFB therefore developed a transfer car with an tilting roller conveyor to enable perfect infeed and outfeed of the goods.

Our goal is your success

Rely on AFB’s advanced technology to optimise your warehouse logistics and increase your operational efficiency. Please contact our sales team to find out more about our customised solutions and how we can help you overcome your operational challenges.

Technical data:

• Dimensions of the transfer car (LxWxH): 1992 x 1350 x 2669

• Max. load weight: 900 kg

• Travel speed: 60 m/min

• Lowest delivery height: 239 mm (from floor)

• Inclination angle of the roller conveyor: 2.4°

• Speed of the roller conveyor: 18 m/min

Transfer car with eccentric lifting device and telescopic fork

For the transport and storage of paper coils, we developed a transfer car with eccentric lifting device and telescopic fork for our end customer, a manufacturer of cardboard boxes. The top tork is equipped with a prism and thus prepared for receiving coils in the paper industry.

The transfer car with eccentric lifting device is part of a large automation project of our end customer’s production. The design of the transfer car is particularly robust and designed for loads of up to 4,500 kg. The coils are discharged through a sluice gate onto custom-built racks. Our product was tailor-made and individually developed for this project.

Technical data:

• Lifting height: 220 mm

• Load weight: 4500 kg

• Speed driving (loaded / unloaded): 30 / 50 m/min

• Lifting time: 6 s

• Lowest discharge level: 1165 mm (from the floor)

• Highest discharge level: 1165 mm (from the floor)

• Stroke max. telescopic fork: 3500 + 50 mm

• Top fork length telescopic fork: 2000 mm

• Telescopic fork length: 2800 mm

• Speed telescopic fork (loaded / unloaded): 30 / 60 m/min

Transfer car with lift mast and double-deep telescopic fork

Safely lifted off: These are chipboards in an order picking warehouse with a customized transfer car manufactured by AFB. Our latest special solution for our customer combines a transfer car with lift mast and a double-deep telescopic fork for double-deep storage of Euro pallets. This makes the product unique so far.

Maintenance made easy

The transfer car is used in a commissioning warehouse with a robot station. There, chipboards are pre-picked and buffered for production. To ensure easy maintenance of the lift mast system in the future, a ladder and step plates have been integrated on the mast. For even more safety at lofty heights.

Technical data:

• Lifting height: 4845 mm
• Max. load weight.: 750 kg
• Speed driving: 90 m/min
• Speed lifting: 60 m/min
• Lowest discharge level: 705 mm (from the floor)
• Highest discharge level: 5555 mm (from the floor)
• Stroke telescopic fork: 2975 + 50 mm
• Top fork length: 1250 mm
• Telescopic fork length: 1500 mm
• Speed telescopic fork (loaded / unloaded): 30 / 60 m/min

Transfer car with lift mast and telescopic fork

For the storage and retrieval of small load carriers in an automatic small parts warehouse, we have designed a special transfer car with a single lift mast. The MINILOAD telescopic fork, which is also installed, has two belt conveyors that make order picking in the aisle possible without any problems.

The advantages of the individual customer solution

The belt drive of the telescopic fork has the advantage that it enables particularly high acceleration and speed values. In addition, the system is low-wear and maintenance friendly. The lift drive also operates with belts, which guarantee a long service life and the precise positioning of the lift frame. The design with a single-beam system also reduces the weight of the transfer car.

Technical data:

• Lifting height: 5720 mm
• Max. load weight.: 34 kg
• Speed driving: 90 m/min
• Speed lifting: 60 m/min
• Lowest discharge level: 480 mm (from the floor)
• Highest discharge level: 6150 mm (from the floor)
• Stroke telescopic fork: 1375 + 30 mm
• Top fork length: 1250 mm
• Telescopic fork length: 1250 mm
• Speed telescopic fork (loaded/unloaded): 50 / 80 m/min

For a customer in the beverage industry, we developed and manufactured a customized transfer car. The transfer car is equipped with an eccentric lifting device, a telescopic fork, a chain conveyor, and adjustable impact walls for load securing. The integrated chain conveyor enables fast and direct transfer of pallets with beverage crates to the customer’s conveyor system. The handover takes place either into the racking system via the telescopic fork or directly onto the customer’s conveyor system. To achieve transport speeds of up to 140 m/min, the car is pulled through the aisle by an external belt drive with a deflection station

Compact Design and Reliable Load Securing

Since we had to achieve a low front and rear approach dimension, we designed the transfer car in a compact configuration. At the same time, reliable load securing was required to prevent the beverage crates from tipping over or falling off even at high transport speeds. We developed adjustable impact walls specifically for this purpose, which securely fix the load during travel and make high travel speeds possible in the first place.

Individual Solution for Demanding Requirements

This project demonstrates how we translate complex customer requirements into a well-engineered and reliable solution. The combination of eccentric lifting device, telescopic fork, and chain conveyor enables flexible integration into existing system structures. At the same time, the specially developed impact walls ensure safe operation even at high travel speeds. Like all our solutions, the transfer car was designed for reliable continuous operation.

Would you like to learn more about our transfer cars or develop a customized solution for your application? Contact our sales team. We will be happy to advise you personally.

Technical data:

• Stroke of telescopic fork unit: 1450 + 30 mm

• Eccentric lifting height: 100 mm

• Lifting speed: 3 m/s

• Load weight: 900 kg

• Travel speed: 140 m/min

• Lowest discharge level: 815 mm (from the floor)

• Chain conveyor speed: 30 m/min

Our latest video shows the integration of our transfer car with rotatable eccentric lifting device and telescopic fork unit into a production isle. The rotatable eccentric lifting device with mounted telescopic fork unit allows the delivery and pick-up position to be operated in a radius of 180 degrees. In this example, pallets are transported to defined storage locations. Separating of pallets is also not a problem – thanks to the combination of eccentric lifting device and telescopic fork unit!