This company produces large telephone switchboards at its Villaverde plant, near the border with Madrid, Spain.

To increase production flow and make the layout more flexible, Alcatel decided to install warehouse management software and an AGV system between the production area and the warehouse/shipping areas.

We had to program some Telefrang terminal, to let operators call an AGV in a flexible way, indicating what will be the next destination.

Other functions like host communications, orders handling and traffic handling have been quite standard, with nothing special.

AGV navigation type: inductive wire guidance

Traffic controller: 486 PC, in warm backup, with Digiboard multiserial ports, connected to all devices on the layout, DI/DO signals and infrared transreceivers to communicate with AGVs, plus a serial communication line to communicate with the host.

Charging concept: charging stations with contacts on top of the AGV, when batteries are low, the vehicle is sent there to stay and charge, as well the AGV goes on charger when there are no transports to execute.

This AGV system is working over two shifts, morning and afternoon.

Number of AGVs: 4

AGV manufacturer: Digitron

Function: AGV traffic controller development and Telefrang terminals programming.

Year: 1994