The industrial production of wooden houses and prefabricated houses with timber frameworks like the manufacturing specialists Weinmann Holzbausystemtechnik GmbH in 72813 St. Johann-Lonsingendoes, is today highly automated.

In the course of the various production steps, sheets made of differing materials have to be loaded onto the multifunctional bridge. For this reason, two vacuum-tube lifters of the type Jumbo 110 are used, in covering part of the total area. They are suspended from easily moved aluminium crane systems to permit simple and fast movement and positioning of the sheets. The vacuum for the fast and safe gripping of the sheets is provided by powerful vacuum blowers mounted at the ends of the crane rails and connected to the vacuum-tube lifters by spiral hoses running along these rails. The vacuum-tube lifters pick up the sheets from a storage stack on the floor and place them on the machine table, which is about 70 cm above floor level.. For the ergonomical handling of the sheets, the vacuum-tube lifters have longer (1,250 mm) tubular operator handles of the type Ergo and a maximum lifting distance of 1,700 mm. In order to ensure that the sheets, of varying sizes and weights, are handled quickly, safely and without damage, the vacuum-tube lifters are equipped with dual vacuum heads.

The advantages of vacuum handling are so convincing that the house company also uses a further special vacuum lifting device of the type VacuMaster Window from Schmalz for lifting and inserting windows into walls on a production line designed especially for fitting windows and doors. In contrast to the vacuum-tube lifters on the Weinmann multifunctional bridge, these are crane-mounted vacuum lifting devices which grip the windows with suction pads and move them to the installation position. The worker thus has both hands free for the actual insertion task.
Vacuum handling equipment thus not only increases productivity and quality, but also makes the process more efficient by reducing the number of persons needed for the work.