Vertical carousels

A vertical carousel is a carousel stood on end: shelves hung on chains circulate inside the enclosure and stop in front of the access window exactly at worktop height. You select an item on the keypad or the screen, the carousel rotates by the shortest route and delivers the right shelf. With several shelf levels, several of them can be served at once, and signalling shows where on the shelf the item you are looking for lies.

How it’s built

The diagram alongside shows how the industrial TITAN version is built. The enclosure and shelves are powder-coated in colours from the RAL palette. The shelves hang on a load-bearing chain and carry up to 500 kg each. The AC motor runs through an inverter, so starting and stopping are smooth, without jerks that would shift the goods. The picking window has LED lighting, a worktop and a 5.7" touchscreen. Access to the interior is closed off by class 4 light barriers: if someone breaks the beam during rotation, the carousel stops immediately. A curtain or automatic roller shutters cover the window while the shelves are moving, and a lock immobilises the unit during servicing. The zone indicator uses LEDs to show which spot on the shelf to take the item from, and optionally how deep.

Two worlds: office and shop floor

GIROCLASS is the version for offices, archives, banks and reception desks. It holds large quantities of documents, binders and folders in a small footprint and runs quietly: noise does not exceed 70 dB. Shelves are fitted with document organisers, and the access window can be at the front, rear, top or bottom. The records are locked inside the enclosure, so only authorised people have access: mechanical lock, code, badge or electronic identification.

TITAN is the industrial version. Shelves carry from 160 to 500 kg each, so they suit tyres, cables and reels, tools, OHS items, automotive components, medicines and chemicals. The drive is an AC motor with a gear reducer and inverter, controlled via a 5.7" touchscreen with an Ethernet port. Shelves have one to four levels, with flaps and dividers.

An archive on one square metre

For document archiving, the manufacturer also offers the BICLASS rotary cabinet: two shelving blocks rotating around a vertical axis that hold more than 12 linear metres of records on one square metre of floor. Together with vertical carousels, this lets you recover, according to the manufacturer, up to 90% of the space taken up today by archive cabinets and shelving. It is a solution for public offices, courts, law firms, hospitals and HR departments that have to keep paper close at hand but do not want to give it a whole room.

Safety and options

• class 4 light barriers stop rotation when someone reaches into the window,
• zone indicators every 25 mm (TITAN) or every 20 mm (GIROCLASS),
• barcode and badge reader,
• additional emergency stop on the other side of the unit,
• storage in a controlled environment: air conditioning, temperature and humidity control,
• fire and gas detectors,
• manual shelf movement during a power failure.

What we do as ErgoFlow

We measure what actually needs storing and how often people reach for it, and only then choose the model, the number of shelves and how they are divided. On the shop floor we link the carousel to the warehouse management system or ERP through SmartSync; in the office, to the document workflow, so that the case number points straight to the shelf. Installation, commissioning, training, service and a two-year manufacturer's warranty with the option to extend it.