Herochu Automated Steel Plate Organization & Sheet Metal Storage System – Heavy-Duty Tower Rack, CE/ISO Certified, Factory-Direct from $19,999
Steel plate is the one commodity that never arrives neatly wrapped. It shows up in 4 m × 2 m bundles, edges like razors, weights that start at 800 kg and climb past 3 t, and every gauge demands a different nest on the laser. Leave it on the floor and you lose flatness; block-stack it and you need a forklift ballet to reach the middle; mis-label it and the cutter stands idle while the operator hunts. The Herochu Automated Steel Plate Organization & Sheet Metal Storage System removes the floor from the equation and puts every plate at crane height, bar-coded, weighed, and ready for retrieval in 38 seconds—no driver, no guesswork, no dented sheets.
One tower, three jobs
Each Herochu tower is a vertical carousel of heavy-gauge cassettes welded from S355 structural steel and mounted on a lifetime-sealed rail. A single 12 m high unit delivers 120 shelves, 2.5 t per shelf, in a footprint of 5.8 m × 2.4 m—roughly the space you would waste on two block stacks and the aisles around them. The tower performs three distinct roles: raw-material warehouse, cutting-machine buffer, and remnant library. When the laser calls for 8 mm hot-rolled, the system rotates the nearest full sheet to the discharge table; after the nest is cut, the skeleton returns to an empty shelf tagged as “remnant 1,340 mm × 2,850 mm” so it can be recalled for the next small job. Customers report 60 % faster laser utilisation and a 45 % drop in plate purchases because remnants are finally visible—and usable.
Servo drive, not hydraulics
Lifting is done by a 7.5 kW servo motor paired with a planetary gearbox and toothed belt. The carriage accelerates at 0.6 m/s² yet positions within ±0.5 mm, gentle enough to prevent sheet slip yet fast enough to deliver a new plate while the previous part is still on the conveyor. No hydraulic oil means no leaks on clean plate, no temperature drift in winter, and no fire-risk in plasma environments. Power consumption is 0.9 kWh per cycle—less than the HVAC unit you currently run to keep the floor-stack free of condensation.
Rail shuttle for multiple bays
When one tower is not enough, a rail-mounted shuttle carriage rides between two, four, or eight towers and services any shelf in the line. The shuttle uses the same servo technology and hands off plates to in-line roller conveyors, cross-transfer carts, or a turntable that swings 90° to feed two lasers arranged in an L-shape. One handler, many machines: you save a crane, two forklift drivers, and roughly 180 m² of aisle space. Should you add a third laser next year, the rail simply extends; no civil work, no pit, no factory shutdown.
Software that thinks in nests
The warehouse management module ships with every tower. It imports DXF nests from SigmaNest, Lantek or Alma, knows the kerf width and micro-tabs, and automatically selects the smallest remnant that will still yield the parts. If no remnant fits, the system pulls a full sheet and updates the stock file. Real-time dashboards show inventory by grade, thickness, weight and location; ERP integration is native via REST API or OPC-UA. A mobile app lets the foreman release an emergency plate from the loading dock coffee queue; the tower delivers it before he finishes the cup.
Built for plasma, laser, oxy-fuel—or all three
Herochu towers are process-agnostic. Store 1 mm aluminium for the fibre laser, 50 mm carbon steel for the oxy-fuel bevel station, and 12 mm stainless for the plasma cutter in the same column. The software records which machine last cut a remnant so it can route it back to the same process if thickness or grade matches. Optional copper inserts isolate galvanic corrosion when aluminium and copper-bearing plates share a shelf; PVC glide strips prevent surface scratching on polished architectural panels.
Safety that satisfies insurers
The entire face is guarded by a Category-4 light curtain with 14 mm resolution; break the beam and the drive coasts to stop in 150 ms. Inside the tower, a through-beam array confirms sheet position before movement; if a plate has slipped 20 mm the system pauses and alerts maintenance rather than scrape a 2 m wide sheet against the frame. Doors are Fortress interlocked; release requires a key that is trapped until the shelf is stationary and the load is confirmed on the transfer table. The frame is designed for 1.5 times rated load plus 0.3 g seismic acceleration, compliant with EU EN 528 and US ASCE 7-22. Fire suppression nozzles are pre-piped every 600 mm; in a thermal event the PLC opens the nitrogen valve and isolates the VFD before the alarm panel even calls the brigade.
Turntable for non-linear plants
Not every shop enjoys a straight-line flow. A 4 m diameter turntable accepts a plate from the tower, rotates 180°, and presents it to a laser tucked against an outside wall. The same table can index 90° to feed a second machine, letting one tower supply two cutters with different cycle times. Rotation is 0.8 rpm—fast enough for takt time, slow enough for an operator to step on and guide an odd-shaped sheet if needed. The table top is replaceable; swap a flat deck for comb fingers and you can drop cut parts directly onto a roller bed for sorting.
Entry package, scalable forever
The starter HC-TP-120 tower delivers 120 shelves, 2.5 t per shelf, 4 m × 2 m sheet size, manual loading station, and WMS licence for $19,999 FOB Shanghai. Installation is bolt-together; a three-person crew can erect the frame in one shift and commission the drive the next morning. Future expansion is plug-and-play: bolt on extra tower sections, splice the rail, and extend the shuttle—no welding, no concrete cutting, no production halt.
Certified, traceable, finance-friendly
Herochu towers are welded under ISO 3834-2 supervision, shot-blasted SA 2½, and finished with zinc-rich epoxy (RAL 5017) before top-coat. All drives and sensors are sourced from European tier-one suppliers with global service networks; each tower ships with a 3.1 material certificate, FEM 10.2.09 static calculation, and CE declaration of conformity. A five-year structural warranty and two-year drive warranty are standard; lease financing is available through Herochu Capital, letting you convert floor space savings into monthly payments that are lower than one forklift operator’s salary.
Stop measuring storage in square metres and start measuring it in minutes to the next cut. Install a Herochu Automated Steel Plate Organization & Sheet Metal Storage System and turn every plate—full sheet or remnant—into a tracked, crane-ready, profit-generating unit that never sleeps, never forgets, and never drops a sheet on its edge.
