Directly on the border between Bavaria and Hesse, a few kilometres from the company headquarters of KAUP, since the spring of 2024 there has been a container spreader in operation in Karlstein am Main in an unusual setting not transporting normal ISO containers.
There, where a good 15 years ago the flow of coal ended at the Gustav mine, a fast-growing industrial area arose in past years with a wide variety of companies. One of these is Algeco GmbH (Algeco), which has its service centre for the Rhine-Main region here.
The German Algeco GmbH belongs to the Modulaire Group, an international leading provider of modular room solutions. Algeco produces innovative container solutions for children’s daycare, schools, offices, residential homes and building sites. The portfolio ranges from functional buildings for a limited period of use to high-quality modular buildings as an interesting alternative to conventional building methods.
Algeco has 15 service centres in Germany, of which 14 use forklift trucks with individually adapted Container Spreaders from KAUP to transport the different modules. But Karlstein is different. Because this is the only location that does not rely on forklift trucks. Here, a white gantry crane moves above the warehouse area, which has space for 550 living and office containers as well as storage positions for 15 stairways.
But the gantry crane would be useless without a suitable machine to move the containers. In this case it is a yellow 7T191K10-20/8-9 Container Spreader from KAUP. Behind that rather cumbersome code hides a spreader with a twin frame design, that can be telescoped continuously from 2,990 to 6,190 mm. This enables picking up of the empty living and office modules of varying sizes from above as well as the respective stairways. But the special feature of this spreader is not the colour, but the load pick-up method.
Special pick-up method
While ISO containers are normally secured with so-called Twistlocks, KAUP designed the securing method at Algeco somewhat differently. Because at each corner of the spreader there is a pick-up hook that enters the side openings of the corner castings to secure the containers for transport. That is a method that is used already at other Algeco locations and is necessary due to the closely spaced living and office containers.
To make picking up of the modules even more secure, sensitive proximity switches are installed on all four pick-up hooks along with the querying mechanism and two visual displays. In particular, the traffic-light displays visible from all positions make placing the spreader easier. Because red appears when all four hooks are open. The traffic light shows amber when the spreader is in position on the module: only when all hooks are closed does the traffic light turn to green so that the gantry crane can lift one of the living and office containers.
Container Spreaders for cranes and forklift trucks
The modular design system on which KAUP’s range of products is based is not only for attachments for handling palletized and non-palletized goods - it also includes equipment for handling various types of standard and special containers. These handling devices are used in numerous branches of industry e.g. in inter-modal logistics, production, service and repairs, as well as container rental.
Numerous fields of application and differing sizes makes container handling challenging. For this reason KAUP container spreaders and container carrying frames are specially designed so that pick-up of containers can be done in various ways.
KAUP Container Spreaders can be individually designed to suit the required application. Upon request these handling devices can be fitted e.g. with cameras or monitors installed in the driver’s cabin showing. In addition sideshift stroke, reverse forks or special corner stops and/or flippers are all part of the extensive accessory program provided by KAUP.
You can find further information and the direct way for contact on our website: https://www.kaup.de.
