Automatic Laser Material Handling & Storage Warehouse

Walk through a typical sheet metal shop and you will see a pattern: a laser cutter running at full speed while a forklift queues in the aisle, waiting to drop a sheet. The laser finishes its nest, the operator walks over, the forklift moves in, the sheet gets positioned, the operator walks back. Five minutes become ten. Ten become fifteen. The laser, which cost six figures, sits idle. Herochu’s Automatic Laser Material Handling & Storage Warehouse exists to break that pattern. It replaces the forklift, the manual positioning, and the waiting with a PLC-controlled system that moves material as a background process—always ready, never in the way.

What “Fully Automatic” Actually Means

The phrase gets used loosely in industrial marketing. For Herochu, fully automatic means a defined sequence with no human decision points between steps. Raw sheets enter the three-dimensional storage tower by forklift or crane, where load cells log their weight and the system assigns them a slot based on material type, thickness, and job priority. When the production schedule calls for a sheet, the gantry manipulator retrieves it, checks thickness to confirm single-sheet pickup, and positions it on the laser bed. After cutting, the manipulator removes the finished sheet and skeleton, depositing them on a double-layer material cart that routes finished parts to sorting and scrap to collection. The operator’s only recurring task is replenishing the tower—and the HMI tells them exactly what to load and where. Every other action is automated, repeatable, and logged.

The Two-Tower Advantage

Herochu’s system supports a one-to-two configuration: a single gantry serving two storage towers and two laser machines. This architecture matters for shops with limited floor space but growing production demands. The dual-tower layout doubles storage capacity without doubling the gantry footprint. More importantly, it allows the system to switch automatically between the two lasers based on their cutting schedules. If machine A finishes a job while machine B is mid-cut, the gantry retrieves material for machine A without interrupting machine B’s workflow. The user controls this switching through the operation box near each laser, and the touchscreen allows manual mode override for setup or maintenance. The system adapts to the shop’s rhythm rather than forcing the shop to adapt to the system.

Separation, Positioning, and the Details That Matter

The failure modes of automated sheet handling are predictable: double-sheet pickup, scratched surfaces, misaligned placement. Herochu addresses each. Sheet separation uses a two-stage approach—mechanical micro-flexing at the sheet edge breaks surface tension, then compressed air injects into the gap to complete separation. Thickness sensors verify the result before the gantry moves. Vacuum cups are arranged in an adjustable matrix, each with independent control, so the system can handle sheets with cutouts, warping, or oil residue without losing grip. The pneumatic rotating structure turns sheets 90 degrees to accommodate both feeding orientations. Repeatability holds at ±2 mm across the full gantry traverse of 10–30 m/min. These specifications are not abstractions; they are the difference between a system that runs unattended and one that requires constant babysitting.

Built for the Shop Floor, Not the Showroom

Herochu engineers each system around the customer’s existing equipment and physical constraints. The HC-A series covers sheet sizes from 3000×1500 mm to 6000×2000 mm, with storage layers customizable from eight to ten and per-layer capacities of 3,000 to 5,000 kg. The system integrates with mainstream laser cutting machines through standard interfaces, and the PLC coordinates loading and unloading without requiring modifications to the laser’s CNC. For fabricators concerned about disruption during installation, Herochu plans commissioning in stages: tower and storage first, gantry integration next, full synchronization last. Production continues while the system comes online. The objective is not to impress visitors with robotics. The objective is to make the laser cutter run more hours per day than it did before, with fewer people touching the material and fewer opportunities for error.