They were not the most favorable of economic conditions prevailing when the Kübat Förderanlagen GmbH D-88361 Altshausen started up operations in 1982. Since its founding as a German-Swiss cooperation, the company leadership has remained in the hands of Walter Waibel. Egon Schlegel joined the company management in 1995.

The young company pursued a clear and objective-oriented course in that the production program promises of manufacturing and distribution systems for concrete. Kübat has been producing its own control systems for these product groups ever since the company was founded. This has the advantage that the control systems can be developed to meet product-specific needs and once these are in service, the access times are guaranteed to be the shortest in the event of faults or modifications. Customer assistance has been provided by Kübat since 1995, by which a direct access is assured in the shortest of times via the modem line.

Durin the course of the last years, the company was able to establish a circle of regular customers extendingfar beyond the borders of Germany. On account of the favorable developments, the necessity arose to build not only new office and administration areas but also to extend the manufacturing facilities at the same time. The new office and administration building was completed in 1994, to be followed in 1995 by the completion of the newly constructed manufacturing building accomodating some 1000qm of production floor space.

The Picture on the startpage provides an impression of the two free-standing-buildings, both of which were planned to be as functional as they have since been fitted out. The modern architecture both inside as well as surrounding the office building is complemented in style through the graphic arts as Max Bill, Richard Paul Lohse, Paolo Minoli, as well as many others. The finally assembly area and the production area for the control systems are located in the newly built manufacturing facilities, as is the steel construction line. The new buldings have been erected on grounds of some 5000qm such that provision for the construction of appropriate extensions is assured.

The planing, construction and administration areas are equipped with the latest state-of-the-art computer and CAD-techniques. Three CAD-Logocad stations are available in the design department. The electrical planning department and the software development are equipped with a Electro-CAD station (E-plan) as well as two programming stations for developing the software for the control systems. The picture shows a CAD station in the design department.

A production program for specific applications
Differing conditions in the plant understandably call for different configurations and designs for overhead bucket transport systems. Kübat meets these requirements by a diversity of means. The manufacturing program includes two different overhead bucket transport systems, the monorail and the double-beam trolley. Both systems can be extended to include the following components: two-way sliding sliding points, three-way sliding points, parallel sliding points, turning points, inclined elevators, vertikal elevators. There are two bogie truck systems available for the transport of concrete, the one with tipping buckets and the other with floor emptying buckets. Not only the monorail conveyor but also the double trolley are actuated by wheel and disk drive and by which traveling velocities of V=200m/min can be reached without having to sacrifice safety or short braking distances. An additional advantage of the wheel and disk drive is in overcoming ascending gradients which can be realized without employing toothed racks.

On account of the specialization required in the differing installations, many examples equally as spectacular as the high-performance constructional designs have been realized for monorail systems. Such an example of this is given by, amongst others, the utilization of a Kübat overhead bucket transport system for the construction of the dam at the Alta river in Norway whereby the highest requirements first had to be fulfilled to meet the climatic conditions prevailing there. Kübat had to guarantee the functional operation of the system here down to -35 degrees. The particular climatic conditions necessitated using special sythetic oil, special gaskets and the use of fine grain steels for the supporting elements. In adition to this, the conditions necessiated the employment to heated conductor rail systems.

An equally extraordinary development was also needed for the transport of concrete at the Rudolph plant in Ellhofen where a multi-functional set of points was put into operation in conjunction with an in-house-development for a vertikal elevator. With these points, a horizontal curve is run over a sledge and the bogie truck can be driven over a second sledge into the elevator at right angles to the give direction of travel. The overhead bucket transport system is then able to supply concrete to three different track level via the elevator.

Understandably, the applications of the overhead bucket transportation system do not only cover the purely concrete range but extend further to differing areas in industry. Exemplary is the use in the refractory industry as well as for the transport of the raw materials for the production of coal for firing in power stations. Alone this example ist confirmation of the wide range in the diversity of applications.

An additional center of emphasis in the manufacturing program is given by the concrete distribution as overhead gantry, semiportal and crane distributors. Combination cababilities are given for buckets with rigid mounts in the distribution crab, with rotable distribution buckets pivoted about vertical axis and with distribution buckets adjustable in heights up to 3m in the stacker truck system. The design last mentioned can be charged individually with horizontal elements and with beam elements.

The following provisions are given for discharge of the concrete from the distributors:
Double-segment lockfor the distribution of large quantities in short times, porcupine rollers with differing discharge speeds and, in specific cases, the drive control can be of the infinitively variable regulation type. In addition to this there are vibro-channels with normal frequency shakers whereby here, the concrete can be metered into the molds by the adjustment of the angle of inclination and the regulation of the compacting equipment is without the need for any additional moving elements. A further type of discharge for the concrete is the cellular wheel sluice which is used for the special metering of plastic concrete consistencies.

Absolutely new on the market is the Kübat innovation in the special development for pipe manufacture. The actual concrete distributor is located in an overhead gantry. The bucket can thereby be adjusted in height by as much as 3 m and can be turned through 360 degrees in the vertical axis. The concrete is discharged via a frequency-regulated conveyor belt whereby horizontal adjustment of the belt to the differing pipe diameters is throughout the dimensional range of between DN 400 and DN 3000mm. The installation is equipped with an exact displacement measuring fixture in the X-Y-direction for the flexible position detection of each respective pipe mold.

Finally, it may not be left unmentioned that Kübat with its chosen structure - mechanical facturing and its own production of control systems - does justice to all practical requirements. All systems in commission are assembled at the plant and tested beforehand as system components. A simultaneous testing station is available in the control system facility.

With this program Kübat has aquired an international circle of regular customers with the result that Kübat systems today are in operation at locations from the North Pole to South Africa and from Russia to North and South America, and worldwide there are more than 200 systems in operation.