Bring new life to your equipment, increasing their lifecycles and providing new features to make your operations safer and more efficient.
Improving Safety, Uptime, and Productivity Through Automation. If your facility has outdated, manually controlled cranes, hoists, or monorail systems, automation technology can bring new life to your equipment, increasing their lifecycles and providing new features to make your operations safer and more efficient. Magnetek® Intelli-Guide™ can do just that. Combining radios, drives, motors, brakes, and automation programming, Intelli-Guide allows operators to automatically send a load to different pre-programmed areas in a facility with the push of a button. Then, as the load moves to the programmed destination along a determined route, the operator can work on a different task or start on the next step of the production process, increasing productivity and efficiency.
Implementing Intelli-Guide in your facility can help reduce operating costs and inventory, improve space efficiency, and increase material flow. With the precise positioning and automatic speed control the system provides, Intelli-Guide can help streamline your operations and improve efficiency as compared to processes that are manually operated.
Intelli-Guide systems can be configured to your exact requirements, giving you flexibility to meet the needs of your unique manufacturing processes. Designed for use on cranes and monorails traveling long distances, even in hazardous environments, Intelli-Guide is ideal for the aerospace, automotive, metals manufacturing, storage and retrieval, and marine terminal industries.
Intelli-Guide allows you to pre-program cranes to travel along designated paths, preventing potential collisions with other equipment or operators. Intelli-Guide can be combined with other Columbus McKinnon automated solutions, such as Intelli-Protect™, to specify additional no-fly zones where crane movement is limited or prohibited.
Auto-dispatch technology does the work for you by eliminating the need for specialized skills or knowledge of lifting technology, sway control, or protected zones, so your system can get up and running quickly. Intelli-Guide also helps reduce the potential for human error by following precise, pre-programmed paths and, when combined with anti-sway software and no-fly zone technology, can minimize downtime for maintenance due to collisions.
Using automation technology, rather than manually guiding the load through a work area, helps decrease takt time and increase productivity. Intelli-Guide provides automated movement for target positioning from one location to another, while also enabling human assistance for precise end-location positioning. With the push of a button, Intelli-Guide allows operators to load and unload a hook at designated locations and automatically dispatch it to the next station. Intelli-Guide allows multiple areas to share a single crane and loads to travel through a variety of locations or cycles, depending on process needs.
Intelli-Guide auto-dispatch systems can incorporate radios, drives, motors, brakes, and additional automation programming, to provide flexibility for the exact needs of your facility. Intelli-Guide is ideal for both retrofits and new installations of cranes and monorails traveling over long distances as well as in hazardous environments.
Every automated system from Columbus McKinnon is designed, engineered, and built in-house by our expert team of engineers and automation specialists. Plus, our highly trained support team is always available – 24/7, 365 days a year – to assist with technical application issues and tight installation timelines.
TARGET POSITIONING: CONFIGURABLE PATH OR FASTEST ROUTE
Target positioning can initiate crane movement, send a load to a designated position, and lower the load to its required height, all with the push of a button. Target positioning is available in two types of travel modes. In the first mode, Intelli-Guide operates so the crane has no set path for travel and can traverse between locations using the shortest distance and least amount of time. In the second mode, Intelli-Guide travels along a pre-programmed path to prevent collisions with equipment, workstations, or other obstacles.
MONORAIL
Monorail systems provide advantages when work occurs on different manufacturing lines. With Intelli-Guide, material automatically travels along a monorail, while also having a point where it can exit. This saves on floor space and enables the material to continue along its most efficient production path. When an operator completes assembly at a workstation, the material can be easily sent to the next location. Operators can then move on to their next task without having to guide the load through a work area, improving their productivity.
VERTICAL
Utilizing vertical space to store materials can be necessary when floor space is restricted or at full capacity. An overhead crane with the Intelli-Guide System can travel along an aisle between rack structures to a specific location. The crane can then manually or automatically lift one object at a time and transport it to the selected storage location. By expanding up, rather than out, a marina bridge crane, for example, can provide significantly more dry dock storage on a smaller footprint to maximize square footage without expensive building additions.
We understand the benefits and challenges of automation. Using our expertise, we will assess your application needs and work side by side with you to transform your systems and processes with our industry-leading automation technology. With a suite of products and decades of automation experience, we will develop a high-performing system to your exact requirements, complete with drawings, control fabrication, and comprehensive testing. You’ll benefit from a dedicated controls engineer who will manage your project from start to finish, ensuring your system is delivered on time to your exact specifications. Not only will they program the PLC code for your system, they will handle on-site field startup and training for your project. From project evaluation to aftermarket support, we are here to ensure your success.
Operational efficiency and streamlined production processes are critical to your business. Columbus McKinnon and its dedicated Automation Division works side by side with customers to leverage automation technology to solve the high-value problems that are important to their business. We’ll partner with you every step of the way, from project evaluation to aftermarket support, to ensure your application needs are met – every time. Want to learn more? Download our Automation Brochure to learn more.
At Columbus McKinnon, we are dedicated to accelerating innovation and expanding our portfolio of automation and diagnostic solutions. One way we are doing this is through the development of intelligent automation solutions for new and existing cranes. See how our technology is helping to create the smart cranes of the future.
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