Optimizing these operations requires the right tools. And for one service center in particular, that meant purchasing a storage, sawing and commissioning center from Kasto Maschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG, Achern-Gamshurst, Germany.

Evolving business needs prompted Kontino, Vantaa, Finland, to consider implementing a new sawing and logistics system. Originally, the wholesale steel distribution and pretreatment company's plan was to make improvements to the storage it already had and to purchase several new saws.

Kontino soon learned, however, that five of its conventional saws would have to be replaced sooner rather than later. Shortly after that, the company attended a Kasto open house.

"What we saw [there]--the combination of a high-rise storage system, as well as a sawing and fully integrated in-feed technology--led us to further considerations and a totally new approach," said Kari Rontyen, project manager at Kontino, in a press release. "Finally, the decision was made to invest in a complete storage, sawing and logistics center. We selected Kasto to be our partner."

Capacity and capability
Kontino's automatic high-rise storage system with two directly integrated saws has 514 cantilever storage locations. Each can be filled with bars from 20 millimeters to 320 millimeters in diameter.

The system can hold 1,150 tons total, and each storage location can handle usable loads up to 2.5 tons. The maximum length for material bars is 7,200 millimeters, and remnants must be at least 450 millimeters to be automatically re-stored and inventoried.

The system's integrated saws are a Kastotec SC 3 band saw and a Kastovariospeed SC 15 circular saw, both of which use carbide blades. The band saw cuts bars 20 millimeters to 320 millimeters in diameter and cut-piece lengths of 6 millimeters to 2,100 millimeters. The circular saw cuts bars 20 millimeters to 150 millimeters in diameter and cut-piece lengths 7 millimeters to 3,500 millimeters.

Kontino has another band saw, a Kastotec FC 7, which isn't part of the automatic sawing and storage system. It is used for longer remnants, individual jobs and larger serial cuts. It can cut bars up to 730 millimeters in diameter and cut-piece lengths from 8 millimeters to 3,200 millimeters.

Rontyen said Kontino has had a good experience with the system and saws, which have yielded both quantifiable and qualifiable results.

"Today, we can cut everything on all machines [with high flexibility] and with a three-times-better productivity compared to before," he said. "We have a clearly higher output and better quality with less personnel, we are always informed about our inventory and deliver to our customers the desired goods JIT-controlled."

Evolutionary process
Werner Rankenhohn, president of Kasto Inc., Export, Pa., says the sawing and storage system at Kontino is not specific to the company. Rather, other service centers have also benefited from it.

In addition to reducing the amount of manual labor required in first-step manufacturing, these types of systems are optimal when a company has a lot of saw jobs with small batch sizes, different materials, shapes, grades and quantities, and when many remnants are created, according to Rankenhohn.

"If you go into a service center, chances are that of those saws in a service center, half of them are idle," he says. "Not because there's something wrong with them, [but] just because the operator or operators are going around, getting the material, bringing it to the machine and taking material away from the machine. And if you have lots of small batch sizes, that manual labor becomes more time-consuming than the actual cutting process. So if you're able to automate that handling and do the handling while the machine is cutting, you can do what five conventional machines do with one integrated machine." MM