NL: Fully automated cultivation at OK Plant
OK Plant grows both seasonal and year-round products. Their year-round product is Little Kolibri Orchids. Some of the seasonal plants grown by OK Plant are: Campanula Addenda, Aster Star Letta, cyclamen and Primula Obconica Touch Me.
Expansion
In July of this year, OK Plant began building a new 25.000 m2 greenhouse to match the growing demand for their products. The new greenhouse is being built in Naaldwijk, the Netherlands, right next to the existing facility, with which it will be fully integrated. The new greenhouse will be used as an extra cultivation area but will also feature a state of the art work area for potting, spacing, and staking.
Cultivation area
The new cultivation area is fully automated using 2D-Shuttles working together with automatic transport lines for efficient internal transport of the benches. This new cultivation area will house more than 1.700 mobile benches (with steel mesh bottoms) each measuring 6,1 m * 1,7 m. To have achieved the same level of automation using conventional push-pull systems would have required installing approximately 40 fixed push-pull systems all adding up to a much higher automation cost. The high capacity automatic transport lines connect the growing area to the working area and to the existing greenhouse.
The working area
The new working area makes use of the existing overhead crane and multiple bench buffers/stacks for empty bench management and uses automatic transport lines to integrate the potting and spacing machines into the logistical system.
The existing greenhouse
The existing facility is also going to benefit from this extension and will be undergoing a full redesign of its logistical flow. That means that this greenhouse will also be fitted with a 2D-Shuttle system and the manual transport lines will be fitted with ADU motors to automate them. This will be the second time Logiqs gets the opportunity to also implement their 2D-Shuttle system in an existing greenhouse.
Software
The whole system will be controlled using Logiqs' control and registration software: Dat-A-Control. The software package also features all necessary modules for such an ambitious project, integrating potting, spacing, and internal transport into one coherent system.
For more information:
Logiqs
Honderdland 131
2676 LT Maasdijk
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 174-514141
Fax: +31 174-517877
info@logiqs.nl
www.logiqs.nl