DSK Grad/Reckli

Automated formliner handling

Figure: BFT International

View of the factory building with the Sommer circulation system and work station for inserting Reckli formliners

Figure: BFT International

The passive storage facility pictured on the left houses steel frames with fixed baseboards ready for production; the active storage area is located to the right, in a slightly elevated position

Figure: BFT International

View across the passive storage to the active storage area where prepared formliners are moving forward on the tracks in suspended position

Figure: BFT International

The technology itself is not complicated. What is complicated is the logistics of the handling system: the system of tracks of the active formliner storage area

Figure: BFT International

On the left: a crane transfers a formliner glued onto a metal frame with baseboard to the pallet circulation system

Figure: BFT International

To such a metal frame …

Figure: BFT International

… a baseboard corresponding to the specified shape of the wall unit is fixed. The formliner is then glued onto the baseboard

Figure: BFT International

An employee needs to cut the formliner to size prior to adhering it

Figure: BFT International

The formliner has been carefully glued onto the frame. It is important to ensure that no concrete can flow into the space between formliner and frame

Figure: BFT International

Model of a residential complex as built by the Morton construction group in the surroundings of Moscow using precast elements manufactured at the DSK Grad plant

Figure: BFT International

On the left, the active storage area with the blue tracks of the handling system fixed to the ceiling. The pallet circulation system of the sandwich wall production line is located on the right-hand side, adjacent to the active storage facility. The passive storage area is not visible in this picture; it is located on the other side of the active storage area

Figure: BFT International

An innovative handling system installed at the DSK Grad precast plant in Russia ensures greater flexibility and higher productivity in the manufacture of sandwich wall units with high-quality, textured surfaces. It manages more than 600 Reckli formliners and transfers them to the pallet circulation system in a fully automated process.

“The technology itself is not complicated; what is complicated is the logistics of the handling system”. This statement taken from the initial talk with Aleksandr Kovalyov, managing director of the Russian DSK Grad precast plant, suddenly comes to mind again when standing in the factory building for the first time, in front of the active storage facility of the system that automatically handles textured Reckli formliners. When viewed from below, the confusing pattern of blue steel tracks on the ceiling of the storage area appears to be quite complex, almost chaotic. These tracks guide...