TECHNOLOGY REPORT | PROCESS CRANES
industrial processes, numerous actors are using new digitalization technologies in industrial settings as part of the Industry 4.0 initiative. The need for overhead cranes with electronic controls has increased as a result. As an example, Demag recently
partnered with logistics provider Vollers, which invested in a new infrastructure at its Port of Amsterdam site. Designed for storing cocoa beans, HoogTij port terminal went operational just a short time ago and now three fully automated Demag process cranes handle the tropical seeds. Amsterdam is home to the second largest port in the Netherlands, after Rotterdam. In Europe, it ranks sixth. More than 20% of the international cocoa harvest is handled right here on the North Sea Canal, where the Amstel river and the IJ bay flow into the IJsselmeer. That makes Amsterdam the biggest cocoa port in the world. A significant proportion of this volume is handled by Vollers Holland, part of the Vollers Group founded in Bremen, Germany 90 years ago. With a team of 320 employees and 13 locations across Europe, the owner-managed company is one of the most experienced logistics specialists for transport, storage and processing of green coffee and cocoa in Europe. Vollers uses a large part of its 120,000m² warehouse facilities to store the cocoa
beans. This requires great care to ensure the natural product can later be processed and turned into cocoa mass, powder and butter. Yet, the logistics provider’s range of services extends beyond handling the sensitive raw material. Vollers also offers value-added services like cleaning and blending cocoa beans, as well as pest control.
With the newly built terminal adding
75,000 tons, Vollers now boasts a bulk capacity of 250,000 tons in Amsterdam. To put the new storage facility into perspective: 75,000 tons of cocoa beans equals 1.5 billion bars of chocolate. Most of the goods are shipped to Europe in containers and by sea – mainly from the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon in West Africa. After the vessels are unloaded by crane, the produce is moved with mobile conveyor belts. Trucks are also employed to transport containers on additional routes. The conveyors deliver the goods to the storage bays, where a feeder bridge operating on a track underneath the crane level then feeds them to the designated compartments. The output conveyor installed on the
feeder bridge minimizes the drop height, which helps to ensure gentle handling of the valuable goods. The recently built HoogTij cocoa bean
storage terminal comprises three quayside hall complexes, each measuring up to some 150m in length. The halls have up to 11 storage compartments featuring concrete walls that measure 10 metres in height. This arrangement ensures various grades of cocoa can be stored separately. The cocoa beans are retrieved in each
hall by a fully automated process crane. The cranes also perform tasks such as storing and retrieving as well as blending and ventilating the goods. Vollers’ project management team and Demag collaborated to engineer the automated material flow concept that is the basis of the crane system control to ensure it meets the requirements for efficient and cost-effective material handling with a high level of system transparency. The three fully automated process
cranes each have a load capacity of 17 tons. In the three stores, they operate on crane runways measuring 150m in length with a span of 37 metres covering the individual storage compartments. Each crane can retrieve 200 tons of raw
materials per hour. To achieve this, the process crane approaches the storage compartment assigned by the system according to the store supervisors to pick up the specified quantity. Besides retrieving specific grades, the crane and conveyor system can create carefully selected
Q Inside one of the three stores: a 150m long crane runway with 37m span R Three quayside stores of identical structure with storage capacity for 75,000 tons of cocoa beans
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