"Now you don't even feel like you're lifting"

Reference: Cell Impact

Cell Impact manufactures advanced flow plates for fuel cells and electrolyzers. The parts of the equipment are very delicate and expensive. With the help of a Vacuum Gripper, the parts can be handled gently, minimizing the risk of dropping and scratching.

High-tech industry

Karlskoga is a city with an industrial history that stretches far back in time. For example, the industrial company Bofors was founded here, with Alfred Nobel among its main owners. Today, the city continues to be characterized by high-tech businesses. One of them is Cell Impact, which manufactures advanced flow plates. The company has developed a unique method that molds 0.1 mm thin steel at high speed. The material is very delicate, which means that all components must be handled with the utmost care during production.

Martin Florén has been working as a machine operator at Cell Impact for 1.5 years. In his job, he operates laser welding machines and laser cutters. At the welding station, he lifts a lid that can weigh up to 4 kg about 100 times a day. Although the staff try to take turns at the stations, the job ended up being quite heavy. But it wasn't just workplace ergonomics that came into play when Cell Impact decided to invest in lifting equipment.

“We used to lift them using a suction cup with a plastic handle. Sometimes it would let go of the lids, which are quite expensive. Plus, the pressure has to be perfectly even over the over plate for it to be welded properly. When we ran into problems, it was often because a lid had fallen and been damaged,” Martin explains.

Lifting a couple of kilos about a hundred times a day was also challenging.

"It will be heavy, that's the way it is. Besides, it doesn't feel right to lift such precious things with a plastic handle. There must be another solution."

A safe solution

To ensure safety when handling lids, Cell Impact chose instead to use lifting aids from Lifts All. The solution was a Z-Gripper - a Vacuum Gripper with balanced control that means the load feels weightless. The Z-Gripper is suspended from a slewing crane that expands the working area where the tool can be used. In addition, the Z-Gripper has a safety feature that allows it to slowly drop to the ground in the event of an air break or pressure drop, instead of falling hands-free.

"The difference is huge!" Martin says. "It's like night and day - now you don't even feel like you're lifting. There is no strain at all. My colleagues also appreciate the tool and that it is easy to use."

And what about the lids that were sometimes dropped?

"As far as I know, no lids have dropped or fallen off since we changed," says Martin.

Cell Impact manufactures flow plates: very thin metal plates used in fuel cells and sometimes also in electrolyzers.
The plates are formed by a compressed air-driven impact unit that very quickly, with very high precision, forms a metal blank between two precision tools.