Steel service centers and fabrication plants handling long stock face a persistent operational constraint: floor space consumed by cantilever racks and forklift aisles rarely justifies the cubic volume actually used. Herochu addresses this imbalance with the HC-X series, a heavy-duty automated storage and retrieval system engineered specifically for steel pipes and structural profiles. The system replaces horizontal sprawl with vertical tower configurations, each layer rated for loads up to 5,000 kilograms and accessible through a gantry mechanism that travels along floor-mounted rails at speeds of 5 to 30 meters per minute.
The architectural logic is straightforward. Traditional pipe yards dedicate three to four meters of aisle width per rack line, and the vertical clearance above stored bundles remains largely unused. Herochu’s configuration eliminates the dedicated aisle entirely. Rack towers stand back-to-back, served by a single gantry that traverses the full length of the storage array. Material is stacked across five to eight customizable layers, with each storage cell measuring 600 by 500 millimeters—a dimension chosen to support pipes at intervals that prevent mid-span sagging, a concern that becomes acute when storing thin-wall tubing or precision aluminum extrusions.
The HC-X series accommodates pipe lengths of 6,000, 7,000, or 8,000 millimeters depending on model selection. The HC-X6053-8 handles 6-meter stock across five layers with 3,000 kilograms per level, while the HC-X8085-10 extends to 8-meter material with eight layers and 5,000-kilogram capacity per tier. These are not fixed limits. Herochu engineers configure layer counts, rack quantities, and bin dimensions against a material audit conducted with the customer’s operations team, ensuring the installed system reflects actual inventory patterns rather than a standardized approximation.
Control architecture centers on a PLC touchscreen interface that maintains real-time inventory visibility. Every deposit and retrieval updates the digital stock record automatically, eliminating the spreadsheet reconciliation that characterizes manual pipe storage. Operators call up a bundle through the interface; the gantry executes the retrieval cycle autonomously, delivering the bin to an ergonomic picking station at floor level. Positioning repeatability holds within ±2 millimeters across thousands of cycles, a precision level that prevents the cumulative drift and misalignment common in forklift-operated racking.
For facilities running multiple shifts, the system supports unmanned operation. The gantry does not require an operator in the storage zone during retrieval cycles, and the PLC logs every movement for audit and production planning purposes. Herochu supplies the HC-X series direct from factory under OEM and ODM arrangements, with modular expansion capability that allows additional towers to be integrated along the same gantry rail as throughput requirements grow.
