Automated Long Material Storage System: Herochu’s Gantry ASRS for Pipes, Bars and Profiles

Storing pipes, steel bars, aluminum profiles, and structural sections has always been one of the more stubborn problems in industrial warehousing. These materials do not fit on standard pallets. They extend beyond conventional shelving depths. They require wide aisles for forklift maneuvering, and they roll, bend, or shift if not properly cradled. Traditional cantilever racking — whether single-sided, double-sided, or adjustable — partially solves the problem, but it leaves vertical space unused and demands constant manual handling.

An Automated Long Material Storage System takes a different approach. Instead of open cantilever arms accessed by forklift, it uses a gantry mechanism that moves along guide rails, lifts to designated shelf levels, and deposits or extracts material bins automatically. The operator never enters the rack aisle. The system handles storage and retrieval cycles on command, controlled by a PLC with touchscreen interface and synchronized with the warehouse management system.

Herochu builds this category of equipment for fabrication plants, metal service centers, and industrial stockrooms that handle long materials in volume. The result is a storage footprint reduced by up to 80%, labor costs cut through 24/7 unmanned operation, and inventory accuracy driven to near-perfect levels through digital tracking.

How the Herochu Automated Long Material Storage System Works

The system is built around four mechanical elements that function as a coordinated unit:

Gantry Loading and Unloading System

A bridge gantry spans the rack array and travels horizontally on floor-mounted linear guide rails. The gantry carries a vertical lifting mechanism with an extraction tool that engages material bins at any shelf level. Traveling speed ranges from 5 to 30 m/min; lifting speed operates at 5 to 15 m/min. Positioning repeatability holds at ±2 mm — tight enough for automated bin engagement without operator correction.

The drive system uses chain transmission paired with linear guide rails, chosen for its reliability under heavy loads and in environments where dust, metal chips, and temperature variation are present. Chain drive requires less maintenance than belt systems and handles the cyclical loading of multi-ton bins without stretch or slip.

Vertical Rack Towers

Cantilever-style rack towers are arranged in rows along the guide rails. Each tower supports multiple storage layers — from 5 to 8 or more, depending on the model. The number of towers scales with the storage volume required. The HC-XG6053-6 configuration uses 6 towers with 5 layers; the HC-XG8085-10 expands to 10 towers with 8 layers. Both tower count and layer count are customized to the customer’s facility dimensions and material throughput.

Maximum load per level reaches 3,000 kg on the HC-XG6053-6 and 5,000 kg on the HC-XG8055-8 and HC-XG8085-10 models. The structural frame is fabricated from Q235B high-strength steel and subjected to pre-shipment load testing to verify integrity at full rated capacity.

Modular Material Bins

Each storage grid measures 600 × 500 mm and accommodates a bin designed to hold single bars or bundled materials. The bins are versatile enough to handle:

• Full-length pipes up to 8,000 mm (with configurations supporting up to 12 meters)
• Short cutoffs and remnants
• Loose individual bars and strapped bundles
• Mixed material types within the same system

This full-size compatibility means a single Herochu system can serve a workshop that stocks multiple material grades and dimensions without requiring separate storage zones for each.

Guide Rails and Control Infrastructure

Floor-mounted guide rails define the gantry’s travel path. The PLC touchscreen controller manages all positioning commands, inventory queries, and system diagnostics. The control system communicates with external WMS, ERP, and MES platforms, enabling real-time stock synchronization and automated reorder triggers when material levels drop below defined thresholds.

Technical Specifications

Space Efficiency: The Vertical Advantage

The defining benefit of an automated long material storage system is vertical density. Traditional cantilever rack layouts dedicate floor area to forklift aisles — often 3.5 to 4.5 meters wide per aisle — and leave the vertical space above the stored material empty. In a warehouse with 8-meter ceilings, standard cantilever racking might use only 30–40% of the available cubic volume.

Herochu’s gantry ASRS eliminates the aisle requirement entirely. The gantry operates within the rack structure, so towers can be placed back-to-back with no clearance between them. Material is stacked vertically across 5 to 8+ layers, using the full height of the building. The result is up to 80% reduction in floor space consumed for the same storage volume.

For a metal processing workshop storing 6-meter pipes, switching from cantilever racking to a Herochu automated system can free hundreds of square meters of floor space — space that becomes available for cutting stations, CNC machines, welding cells, or finished goods staging.

Automated Handling and Material Flow

Manual long-material handling is slow, labor-intensive, and accident-prone. A forklift operator must drive to the rack, position the mast, extract a bundle, reverse, travel to the delivery point, and repeat. Each cycle takes 5–15 minutes depending on aisle length and rack depth. Over a full shift, a single operator might complete 40–60 retrievals — and every cycle carries risk of material damage, rack collision, or personal injury.

The Herochu Automated Long Material Storage System compresses that cycle dramatically. The gantry receives a retrieval command — from the touchscreen, from the WMS, or from an ERP-triggered production order — and executes the cycle autonomously. Travel to the target tower, lower to the correct layer, extract the bin, deliver to the output station. The operator picks up the material at the station and moves on.

This workflow reduces manual handling steps, supports organized material flow, and enables 24/7 unmanned operation for facilities running multiple shifts. For high-throughput operations, the gantry’s 12 m/min inlet and outlet speed keeps pace with production demand without becoming a bottleneck.

Digital Inventory Management

Every bin in the Herochu system has a digital identity. When material is deposited, the operator (or the integrated WMS) assigns the material type, grade, dimension, and quantity to that bin position. The system updates the inventory database in real time — no paper records, no manual cycle counts, no discrepancies between physical stock and system records.

The touchscreen interface displays current stock levels for every material type, bin position, and tower. Production planners can query the system directly through the ERP integration: “How many meters of 50 mm seamless pipe are in stock?” The ASRS responds with precise figures, and reorder thresholds trigger automatic procurement alerts.

This digital inventory capability is what makes the system “smart” rather than merely automated. It transforms the storage area from a static holding zone into an active data source for production planning, procurement, and logistics coordination.

Application Flexibility Across Industries

The Herochu Automated Long Material Storage System is engineered for a broad range of linear materials and industry settings:

• Steel pipes and tubes — seamless, welded, alloy, and carbon steel varieties in lengths up to 12 meters
• Structural sections — I-beams, H-beams, channels, angles, and hollow sections
• Aluminum profiles — extrusions used in construction, automotive, and consumer goods manufacturing
• Bar stock — round, square, and hexagonal bars in carbon and alloy steel
• Rebar bundles — corrugated steel bars for construction supply

The system’s modular bin design accommodates loose materials and strapped bundles interchangeably, making it practical for fabrication plants, metal processing workshops, steel service centers, and inventory storage operations of any scale.

Fail-Safe Protection and Structural Integrity

Storing multi-ton loads at height requires uncompromising safety engineering. Herochu integrates multiple protection layers:

• Intelligent laser sensors scan the gantry travel path and halt movement when obstructions are detected
• Real-time load monitoring verifies bin weight against rated capacity before the lifting cycle begins
• Mechanical safety devices on the chain drive prevent uncontrolled descent
• Pre-shipment load testing validates structural performance at full rated capacity before delivery

The main frame’s heavy-duty construction handles the cyclical loading of repeated storage and retrieval cycles across years of continuous operation. The chain drive system is selected for its durability under heavy payloads and its resistance to the environmental conditions found in metalworking facilities.

Customization and OEM/ODM Supply

Herochu supplies the Automated Long Material Storage System directly from the factory under OEM and ODM arrangements. Each system is engineered to the customer’s specific requirements:

• Material dimensions (max length, max weight per unit, bundle sizes)
• Available floor area and ceiling height
• Daily throughput targets (storage and retrieval cycles per shift)
• Integration requirements (WMS, ERP, MES connectivity)
• Number of storage units and rack towers
• Layer count per tower

This project-based procurement model ensures the system is built to specification rather than forcing the customer’s operation to adapt to a catalog product. It also enables rapid scalability — additional towers and layers can be added as logistics demands evolve, thanks to the modular shelf architecture.

Conclusion

For any operation that stores long linear materials at volume, the Herochu Automated Long Material Storage System offers a clear upgrade path from manual cantilever racking. It combines vertical storage density, gantry-driven automation with ±2 mm repeatability, real-time digital inventory tracking, and multi-ton per-level capacity in a single integrated platform. The result is measurable: up to 80% floor space reclaimed, labor reduced through unmanned cycles, and inventory accuracy that supports rather than hinders production planning.