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Stackable HP Crates for Press Shop to Assembly Shuttle Runs
In a car plant a stamped part can travel less than 400 metres and still be handled seven times. This crate is built for that loop only: blanking line to sub assembly cell, sub assembly to line side buffer, then back empty nested three to one.
Why a short haul wears a crate out faster
A 300 metre route can mean 40 handling cycles a day, 12 000 a year, 60 000 over a five year model programme. Hinges, latches and base corners give up long before the walls do, so that is where the reinforcement goes. The rest of the geometry stays light and the empty crate settles at 36 kg, which one operator can lift without a second pair of hands.
Because the trip is short, nobody wraps the load and nobody straps it down. The crate has to survive forklift blades, tugger train corners and an operator in a hurry on its own.
Construction details that matter on this route
Base: double wall polypropylene over five runner rails, so the payload sits on the rails instead of the floor pan. Four way fork entry with a 100 mm tunnel height, enough to clear a worn blade heel without scraping.
Walls: 6 mm solid PP on a 12 mm top rim, with vertical ribs at 150 mm pitch. The rim carries the stack, the ribs stop the wall bowing when a heavy casting slides in.
Corners: moulded corner blocks with an 8 mm radius, drop tested at 1.2 m with a 500 kg payload at minus 20 C.
Floor: drain holes of 4 mm diameter on a 300 mm grid, so coolant and wash water leave instead of pooling under the parts.
Identification: recessed label pockets on two sides, 105 x 74 mm, sized for A6 labels with an RFID tag behind the window.
Footprints we already hold tooling for
HP 1210: 1200 x 1000 x 975 mm, payload 800 kg, four high static stack, 36 kg tare.
HP 1010: 1000 x 1000 x 850 mm, payload 600 kg, four high, 31 kg tare.
HP 1210 S: 1200 x 1000 x 640 mm, payload 500 kg, five high, 27 kg tare.
HP 860: 800 x 600 x 580 mm, payload 250 kg, six high, 14 kg tare.
Nesting depth is 260 mm on the 1210 and 230 mm on the 860, so a trailer full of empties comes back at roughly one third of its outward volume.
How it is used inside the plant
At the press line the crate stands at the end of the conveyor and takes parts straight off the chute. At the sub assembly cell the same crate becomes the bench, because a 975 mm rim suits a standing operator. At line side it stacks four high against the fence and is pulled down by the hour rather than the shift, which is what keeps the buffer small.
For plants running a milk run between buildings, the crate takes a bolt on dolly plate and a tow bar, so one tugger pulls six crates at walking pace without a trailer.
What we change for your line
At Zhangjiagang we cut the mould for your footprint instead of selling you a standard box: divider slots on a 50 mm pitch, EPP or EVA inserts bonded to the base, hot stamped logo, colour matched to your plant standard, and a steel reinforced rim once the stack goes above five high. A new footprint tool runs six to eight weeks, and the first samples come off the same machine that will run production.
Send the part drawing and the route it takes, and we come back with a footprint and a stack height that fit your conveyor, your trailer and your racking, rather than the other way round.
