A manufacturer of steel railroad anchors, who was concerned with employee safety and also desiring to increase productivity on the line, recently turned to IMI to see if a magnetic material handling solution could improve their process.
The application involved lifting & moving 100 lb., woven-poly bags full of steel railroad anchors from the production line over to shipping pallets. "Manually performing this task was an employee safety risk", stated Mike Sickendick, IMI’s Regional Sales Manager, "and utilizing other methods to move the bag had proven unsuccessful. Vacuum cups wouldn’t work on this surface, and using a hook was often tearing the bag."
The solution entailed an IMI custom lift magnet that was integrated with the customer’s existing hoist control handle. The magnet was able to lift the entire 100 lb. bag of steel pieces, through the fabric, by magnetically attracting only the portion of product at the top of the bag. "People usually think of magnets for lifting only flat, steel surfaces, but in this application we were able to lift and move a very irregular shaped product in bulk, which made this a very beneficial project for our customer.”
To view additional custom magnetic solutions that Industrial Magnetics has designed, visit our "Automation Custom Solution Profiles" (login required). You can also contact an IMI product specialist at 800.662.4638, or by emailing imi@magnetics.com.