KELLER has long since ceased to focus its activities only on the heavy clay industry.

The aspiration of KELLER has always been to develop high-quality machines and plants for its customers on the basis of innovative technologies. This guiding principle, manifested in the corporate slogan “Creating Solutions”, is also the focus and driving force for the KELLER IMS division. We distinguish ourselves through our particular passion in the field of intelligent handling tasks and palletising processes.

For complex tasks that require creative solutions, we accept the challenge and do our utmost to find an optimum solution for our customers. With the experience and a feeling for what is feasible, the qualified employees develop and design highly flexible machine and robot supported concepts optimally adapted to the product. When standard solutions reach their limits, whether for performance, flexibility or space reasons, we are in demand. Where the material was previously transferred by machine solutions with rigid processes, we achieve higher efficiency and productivity of the production line through highly automated machine concepts and intelligent control systems.

It is important for our work to enter into a constant dialogue with our customers from the beginning in order to fully understand and analyse the handling processes, the automation and machine solutions as well as the upstream and downstream process steps. In doing so, we can also find new, completely optimised ways to solve the task.

As a manufacturer of overall solutions from machine technology, control and automation technology to process visualisation - all from one source - the modules are optimally matched to each other and offer a high degree of flexibility. Thus, solutions from KELLER IMS can be easily and individually integrated into existing production lines. With 3D simulations and virtualisation, the solution becomes visible even before the start of production in order to take into account any room-specific particularities.

We always see it as our challenge to achieve a maximum availability of the plant by a plant concept optimally developed for the product, by the durability of our machines, by short set-up times and low maintenance work.

Gripping as well as the lifting and lowering process is decisive for the safe handling of materials. Sophisticated gripper and take-up systems form the basis for the most different types, dimensions and weights of material handling with minimum space requirements. Thanks to a very extensive portfolio of gripping devices, our machine solutions can safely pick up and set down the most different products, such as glass pipes, paint buckets, porous concrete and sand-lime bricks up to concrete channels. We also always find the right gripping solution for special workpieces with special dimensions or sizes. KELLER grippers are not only limited to opening and closing, but can also turn, spread and group the products during handling. In this way, a part of the previously additionally required plants and machines are replaced by our machine solution.

Our range of services is completed by measures and facilities to ensure the safety of production processes, such as the performance of safety audits.

Today, modern handling and palletising technology networks the internal material flow with high production speeds and high precision thanks to positioning and collision control systems. KELLER IMS does not only develop the machines for this purpose - we develop complete solutions for your material handling with the ambition of maximum possible efficiency.

Today, plants and machinery built by Keller run around the clock all over the world. KELLER machine technology has proven itself especially in rough and demanding environmental conditions, such as in building material production plants.

The company supports innovations and new developments and takes environmental protection into account in all its activities. KELLER ensures that the high requirements they set for themselves and which the customers address to KELLER, will be optimally fulfilled.

KOA is specialised in the planning and realisation of production plants for the steel industry and has many years of experience in plant engineering. Furthermore, KOA-NewTec represents several international companies that manufacture measurement products for steelworks and rolling mills. The company has also been active in the sector of optical temperature measurement for several years and therefore has great expertise. With this expertise KOA-NewTec has taken over the support of the German and international plant engineering of the steel industry for KELLER ITS since 01.07.2020. With the expansion of the sales network and the strengthening of customer service, KELLER ITS strives to become the market leader in the field of optical temperature measurement for high-end applications in the steel industry.

KOA-NewTec
45481 Mülheim
Germany
Phone +49 208 46937202
its.koa@keller.de

In practice, however, it is not that simple. For example, wear and tear, changes in the delivered material, its varying moisture content and unplanned production interruptions may lead to variations in the production process, which have a direct effect on the product quality.

With the analysis of material samples, preventive maintenance work and the experience of the operators, countermeasures can be taken in time and the desired quality can still be ensured. However, experience gained over many years cannot always simply be transferred to a new employee and this may result in incorrect assessments.

With the new K-Matic Moisture Control KELLER offers the operator a simple possibility to permanently monitor the changes in the preparation water content by continuous measurement or indication of the measured value and to react directly to them - without waiting for a moisture analysis, which, moreover, only reflects the condition of the material at the time of sampling. Furthermore, clear measured values enable even inexperienced operating personnel to react adequately to variations in the preparation water content.

The measured value can be transmitted and evaluated both analogue and digital through various interfaces. This also allows automation of the required water addition.

At the KDW clinker roof tile plant of the ABC-Klinkergruppe at the Natrup-Hagen site, for example, the implementation of the K-Matic Moisture Control in the production of roof tiles and accessories has further improved the production processes and therefore the product quality. By the continuous measurement of the input moisture of the operation mass delivered from the central preparation plant, the required addition of preparation water can now be controlled more precisely, so that an even more constant operation of the shaping lines is achieved. "This is an investment that one would no longer want to do without," says Klaus Kuhlmann, the Plant Manager. "The improved efficiency in the production process is also reflected by the reduced waste rate.”

In cooperation with SEW, KELLER HCW has completely revised its previous cutter technology to meet the future requirements. SEW converters of the Movi-C generation are used for the new development of the cutter. The modular design allows optimum energy efficiency. The common intermediate circuit ensures the energy exchange between the axes. Due to the different acceleration and deceleration requirements of the drives, the braking energy of one axis can be used for the acceleration of the other axis. In this way, energy losses in the braking resistors and thus cooling measures in the switch cabinet can be reduced. The high-performance Movi-C controller calculates the complete cam disk application by using basic mathematical functions. Therefore, the former data blocks for the individual cam points belong to the past. The customer can make necessary changes to products independently using the Keller operating concept. The dimensions and output data for each size are stored in the Siemens TIA control system. The cutting length can be variably adjusted in the running process. In addition, the time for cutting and spacing and the distance between the gaps can be influenced.

The lifting of wires and tables is automatically calculated in the controller. The communication between the TIA control system and the SEW control system is reached by the Profinet fieldbus system. Moreover, the system is optimized by the improved controller properties of the Movi-C series.

The clay column detection can be realized by an incremental encoder on a measuring roller or measuring belt or optically via a laser. The advantage of the optical clay column detection by laser is the avoidance of mechanical influences on the measurement result during the cutting process.

Furthermore, functional safety is an integral part of this converter series up to PL (Performance Level) according to EN ISO 13849-1 or SIL 3 (Safety Integrity Level) according to EN 61800-5-2, EN 61508.