2/1/2019
The established precast concrete manufacturer Keegan Precast Ltd., with a workforce of more than 120, rises to the requirements of the market in Ireland and Great Britain with another state-of-the-art pallet circulation system. With the new production facility, Keegan Precast Ltd. reacts to the growing demand of customers for product variety, more quality and quantity, efficiency, and faster reaction times.
State-of-the-art and flexible pallet circulation system
Until 2004, Keegan Precast was widely known as operator of a limestone quarry, manufacturer of cavity blocks and supplier of ready-mixed concrete. In 2004, John Keegan, owner of the company of the same name, decided to enter the precast concrete market. On his quarry site in Rathmolyon Co. Meath, Ireland, double walls and slab elements had since 2005 already been manufactured on a pallet circulation system from Weckenmann Anlagentechnik GmbH & Co. KG. Keegan Precast has proven to be a reliable supplier and partner of the precast concrete
industry for industrial and residential construction.
In 2016, in response to the continuous rise in market demands from year to year, John Keegan, the owner and managing director, decided to invest in another circulation pallet system. Together with the worldwide active plant supplier Weckenmann Anlagentechnik GmbH & Co. KG from Dormettingen, Germany, which had already supplied the first system, a state-of-the-art, highly flexible pallet circulation system was planned and installed based on an in-depth market analysis and efficient team discussions. Since 2017, precast concrete elements have been successfully manufactured both on the new and the old system.
Since then, Keegan Precast has expanded the product variety of time-tested double-wall and floor-slab production not only by adding thermally insulated and non-insulated double walls and precast floor slabs, but also by solid walls, sandwich panels, foundation slabs, girders and solid floor slabs of prime quality
The sophisticated plant concept with various offline workstations enables Keegan Precast to manufacture precast elements also as façade elements, without slowing the pallet flow in the plant. With this plant concept, supported by state-of-the-art machines, such as concrete spreaders, pallet turning equipment and stacker cranes, jobs can likewise be carried out on very short
notice, regardless of the end product.
Retrofit parallel to the new system
The high-quality precast elements manufactured on the new circulation system are precisely shuttered by a fully automated shuttering robot from Weckenmann’s third robot generation. The shuttering robot shutters double wall and floor slabs as well as solid walls at a single pallet position. With the ingenious shuttering systems of the A and M series, nearly the complete product portfolio of precast elements can be handled, reducing in this way the time for manual shuttering to a minimum. In a future extension stage, even a fully automated clinker brick placement robot can be retrofitted. The plant and the production processes in the pallet circulation pallet system are controlled by the Weckenmann WAvision master control system in close collaboration with Keegan’s CAD design team. Parallel to the new plant system, Weckenmann retrofitted the old circulation system. Here, Weckenmann upgraded the complete plant control to the state of the art and, on top, supplemented it with the WAvision master control system. In this way, Keegan Precast manufactures precast elements on two circulation pallet systems with uniform control systems. The renowned and internationally recognized plant supplier Weckenmann Anlagentechnik provides all of this as a one-stop supplier, adding this state-of-the-art system to its list of flagship projects.
Facts and figures on the new system at Keegan Precast:
4 curing chambers, insulated, with a pallet capacity of 56 pallets
Shuttering pallets 3.8 x 14 m for high-quality surfaces, with edge shuttering on both sides
Overhead stacker crane with storage area for precast elements, vertical and horizontal
Offline positions for placing insulation / form liners /clinker bricks
Fully automated pallet turning equipment with movable clamping arms for adjusting wall and insulation thickness
Fully automated shuttering robot with shuttering transport system with cleaner-oiler for demolding system of the A and M series
Manual shuttering positions with offline positions for manual shuttering and installation of clinker bricks, form liners
Concrete spreader with concrete compaction and by noiseless vibration technology
Complete circulation control with hard- software
WAvision MES system for organizing the circulation technology
