North Rhine-Westphalia-based Wolfgang Fischer Stahl GmbH has installed a new B+S cut-to-length line as part of the expansion of its steel service centre. The investment allows the flexible production of flat and dimensional sheets in any batch size, which is not bound to the size of complete coils. Even different coating systems are no problem for the new, highly automated cut-to-length line.

“When expanding its machine park, Fischer Stahl attached importance to being able to supply its customers with even smaller lot sizes than before, if required,” says Dr Lutz-Stefan Heinrich, managing director of Schnutz GmbH, which belongs to the B+S group. “For this reason, it was clear from the outset that the new cut-to-length line had to be capable of processing partial coils.”

Another decisive factor in the choice of the B+S cut-to-length line was the gentle treatment of coated or pre-painted material surfaces, which is ensured by a special foiling system upstream and corresponding intermediate rollers within the high-performance levelling machines. A flying, high-precision slide shear also minimises the cutting tolerance.

From a coil store with three locations, a coil lift truck feeds the decoiler with coils of up to 15 tonne mass, which can be uncoiled either from above or below. If there is an intermediate paper layer in the coil, it can be removed cleanly by means of a corresponding re-winder and disposed of. Furthermore, it is possible to rewind coils that are only to be partially processed. The coil lift truck finally returns these partial coils to the coil store, where they are automatically weighed.

“In this way Fischer Stahl can also assemble small batch sizes and still always knows exactly what quantities are being returned to the coil warehouse,” Heinrich explains.

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