Man and Machine in Perfect Harmony

Manual lifting is one area where humans need a helping hand. Strength is the key requirement, and even the biggest muscles are susceptible to wear, tear and injury. So Piab have developed a solution in the shape of the piLIFT® SMART vacuum lifter. It doesn’t look human, but it does enhance human performance – and it has brains.

Lightening the load

Manual handling is a risk to health and safety. Involving lifting or moving heavy loads, and tending to be repetitive, it can lead to repetitive strain injuries at best, or acute injuries from dropped loads at worst. But across a broad range of industries and processes, it’s an integral part of the production process.

Now, from loading and off-loading boxes onto and from transportation pallets, to moving and emptying bulk material containers, the Piab piLIFT® SMART vacuum lifter can lighten the load.

This smart, ergonomic and energy-efficient vacuum lifter increases reliability, speed and productivity – yet reduces risk of injury – by effectively integrating human and machine.

For operator safety, a protective handguard is incorporated into the design, and the noise level during operation is kept to a minimum for worker health, wellbeing and environmental considerations.

The lifting process of the Piab piLIFT® SMART is also designed with safety at the forefront. Using a single vacuum source to grip and lift in a single movement creates an inherent safety feature unavailable with any other lifting solution: if the object to be moved can’t be gripped, then it won’t be lifted. Which means there’s no risk of it being accidentally dropped mid-procedure.

And when it does lift, the Piab piLIFT® SMART can reduce the load on an operator's body by over 80% - meaning less risk of repetitive strain injury, fewer sick-leave hours, and therefore more process reliability and higher productivity.

Brawn and brains

Using a vacuum lifter is already a proven solution for many material handling processes. What makes the Piab piLIFT® SMART a major step forward is its Industry 4.0 integration capabilities: the brains behind the brawn.

As the first vacuum lifter to be Industry 4.0-ready, the Piab piLIFT® SMART has integrated smart data features based on internet connectivity. These not only make it more effective at handling, but also provide more data for more efficient utilisation.

The ability to sense and record movements enables it to respond more quickly to operator intentions, so it’s more user-friendly. And the ability to lift and weigh loads simultaneously, as well as collect and log data, means process statistics and analyses are immediately available to the user – either on the piLIFT® SMART’s built-in display, or through a web platform.

These data management features not only provide a useful record of activity, but also let the operator know when it’s time for the vacuum lifter to be maintained or cleaned. So downtime is minimised, reliability is optimised and the Piab piLIFT® SMART just keeps on lifting.