What makes the situation in a plate mill challenging is the fact that the stacks of stored plates consist of many more layers than, for example, the stacks in a slab yard. The plates vary in length and sometimes two cranes may be needed to lift and transport them. In these cases perfectly synchronous operation of the two cranes must be guaranteed.

Usually, the plates are lifted by way of magnets. TWMS/metals performs plausibility checks to guarantee that always the correct number of plates are lifted.

3tn has developed a special HMI for crane operators, which allows them to zoom in on the selected stack in a virtual environment and see at a glance all relevant data about each individual plate.