250 shuttles and hardly any service calls: advastore relies on lubrication-free gear and bearing technology

What was needed: Wear-resistant, maintenance-free and durable bearing technology and gears (often special parts) for the efficient movement of several hundred shuttle systems

Requirements: Lubrication-free and maintenance-free, long service life, reliability in 24/7 operation, fast delivery of customised components

Industry: Material handling

Success for the customer: Thanks to low-wear and self-lubricating gears and gear racks as well as plain bearings, lead screws and linear bearings, the 250 shuttles in the distribution centre do not need to be lubricated or maintained at many points of movement. An intensive exchange between advastore and igus and the rapid delivery of customised components contributed to the rapid development of the so-called "advaShuttles".

The logistics service provider advastore was founded with the aim of automating and revolutionising the fulfilment process - i.e. order processing from order to delivery. Everything revolves around the huge distribution centre in Germany in the centrally located town of Niederaula, where customers throughout the country are supplied quickly and efficiently from an area of 18,000m2.

Each product that arrives at the fulfilment centre is taken out of the box and placed individually on a conveyor belt. From then on, everything is completely automated: A driverless transport vehicle - the advaShuttle - picks up the products and brings them to the warehouse via an extensive network. Several hundred advaShuttles whizz through the large halls to store products or, in the case of an order, to collect them and transport them to the packing station. They move not only horizontally, but also vertically through the warehouse.

However, to enable the fast and reliable movement of all shuttles in the huge logistics centre, the service provider needed durable and, above all, maintenance-free components. There must be no incidents in the tightly synchronised logistics process in order to ensure high efficiency and fast delivery of the products.

At the same time, the company had to develop a particularly cost-optimised solution for the large number of shuttles. However, the weight of the shuttles and the issue of time also played a major role: Rapid development of the shuttles was crucial for the success of the fulfilment centre so that it could go into operation quickly.

The advastore approached igus very early on in the planning of the logistics centre to develop the first versions of the advaShuttle. It turned out that conventional gear racks and gears for the horizontal and vertical movement of the shuttles in the warehouse could not fulfil the requirements of continuous operation.

The decisive factor for advastore was that all components were maintenance-free. Today, the logistics specialist therefore relies on the lubrication-free and maintenance-free gears and gear racks made of xirodur B180, thus saving regular servicing of the shuttles and enabling constant operating times in its system. The endurance material is self-lubricating and also characterised by its very low coefficient of friction, its vibration-dampening specifications and its high temperature tolerance. To move, the shuttle inserts its drive wheel into the gear rack and moves up or down independently - even with a load of up to 20kg.

In addition, in its shuttles advastore relies also on iglidur plain bearings, dryspin lead screws and nuts as well as compact drylin N linear bearings. In addition, igus energy chains are used at several points in the plant for safe cable guidance, such as triflex energy chains for robot cells.

In addition to the in-depth and lengthy consultation process, the delivery times for the components – many of which were made to measure – were also a decisive factor for advastore in ensuring a swift implementation of the project. At igus, products can be individually manufactured using injection moulding, milling from bar stock or rapid 3D printing.

Thanks to the reliable and lubrication-free components, advastore is able to operate the huge distribution centre almost autonomously. The advaShuttles have been so well received that the logistics company now wants to offer them as a product on the market.