Scalable conveyor systems help farmers to be quicker, cleaner and more steady.

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With a strong background from the automotive industry and extensive knowledge from complex operations, OCS gladly accept new challenges within the Vertical Farming industry.

In 2019, OCS received a request from Swedish vertical farming company Ljusgårda. After a close collaboration with the client, OCS supplied a tailored automated overhead conveyor system, which has now been running smoothly and contributed to a great increase in production.

“When taking on a new project, it’s always very important to understand the exact needs of our clients, whether it is transporting carparts or leafy vegetables” says Patrick Djerf, Business development manager at OCS.

Clients within the automotive industry are well adapted and used to automation, and therefore often able to describe their exact needs. Vertical farmers on the other hand, naturally have less experience when it comes to conveyor technology and automation as this is still a new and upcoming market. That is where OCS comes in. With our experience and know-how, we always begin with the actual need of the client and together, we develop the most optimal solution – whether it is salad, bikes or carparts that needs to be handled.

Scalable solution, from manual to automation

The OCS solutions for vertical farms come as automated- and/or manual overhead conveyors. Manual (hand-pushed) overhead conveyor systems allow moving a large number of goods easily with a single push. Once a grower is at a decent level of production and feels the need to automate, that can easily be applied, either fully or partly. Partly meaning that a grower can choose to automate certain sections of a farm.

Our recommendation is that automation should only be applied when it’s a decent-sized farm. Depending on what size the tubes are (in height) you can automate for less money per m2, in comparison to smaller sized tubes. However, the higher the towers are, the more difficult they are to handle.

Easy maintenance

Service-wise, the system does not need a lot of maintenance. In the automotive industry, normally, maintenance is done twice a year by OCS. Compared to that, the systems in vertical farms need much less maintenance than that, due to the lower intensity use of the conveyors. It’s a robust system with a logic technique, which in most cases, enables customers to do the maintenance themselves.
With the OCS conveyor technology, we can support the vertical farming industry through automated material handling, which can lead to increased production and reduced labour costs.