Industries Served
An automated fleet is only as reliable as the thing it picks up. If a unit sits a few millimetres out, sags under load or presents an inconsistent face, the robot aborts the pick and the loop stops. Lowe engineers stillages, carts and cages that give AMRs and AGVs the same interface on every approach — consistent pick geometry, defined lift and guide features, and a frame that holds its shape across repeated cycles.
Designs are developed in CAD from your vehicle OEM’s handling specification and your own footprint, then manufactured in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, with UKCA marking where applicable. Repeat batches are built to the retained drawing, so a later unit interfaces exactly like the first one.
How Lowe helps
Made to order
Tell us what you handle and how it moves — we'll scope a load-tested, UK-manufactured solution and quote it, usually the same working day.
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On a manual site, a stillage a few millimetres out of position is a stillage a few millimetres out of position. On an automated one it is a failed pick, a fault code and a stopped loop. The vehicle approaches the same way every time and expects the same geometry every time, so the handling feature — lift slot, roller face, tow pin, indexing point — is the part of the specification that matters most.
We work from the handling interface your fleet defines: pick height, lift travel, clearance envelope, and the datum the vehicle locates against. That drives the frame design rather than the other way round. Where a robot lifts a cart from underneath, ground clearance and castor position become as critical as the load deck itself.
A frame that holds its geometry on day one but distorts after a year of cycles is the same failure arriving later. Section sizes and joint design are chosen so the unit stays within tolerance under repeated automated handling, not just under a single static load at first inspection.
Automation exposes anything variable. Mixed footprints mean mixed pick strategies, inconsistent stack heights mean the vehicle cannot clear or see what it expects, and a unit that can be loaded two ways will be loaded two ways. Standardising on a small number of engineered types simplifies the fleet’s job and takes exception cases out of the control system.
Where units are stacked, buffered or handed off to conveyors and lifts, stacking features need to locate positively rather than rely on an operator’s eye. The same applies at the manual-to-automated boundary — the point where a person loads a unit that a robot then picks is where a large share of integration problems actually originate.
It is worth designing the unit alongside the layout. Aisle width, turning circle, charge points and buffer positions all constrain the footprint, and a footprint chosen late is one that costs throughput for the life of the installation.
Automated handling does not remove the duty to show that equipment is fit for use. Units are supplied with identification and documented load assumptions, so a handling process can be evidenced during an audit or internal safety review, and so anyone specifying a replacement can see what the original was built to do.
Manufacture is in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, with UKCA marking where applicable, and drawings are retained for repeat production. That matters more with automation than without it: a fleet expansion two years out has to interface to the same tolerance as the first batch, and a unit built loosely to roughly the same size will start generating failed picks.
Recommended ranges
Our capability
Send a drawing, a sample or a photograph of the part. Our engineers size the unit around what it carries and how it is handled, then build it in Staffordshire to a specification you sign off before a single length of steel is cut.
Load-tested · UK-manufactured · certified where required
Talk to an engineer →Why Lowe
Designed and manufactured around your components, handling equipment and floor layout — made to order or fully bespoke.
Engineered and load-tested for safe stacking, forklift handling and demanding industrial duty cycles.
UK-manufactured to recognised standards, with certification available on custom builds and repeatable weld and build quality.
Manufactured in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire — short lead times and a direct line to the people building your kit.
Questions
Yes. We work from the handling interface the platform defines — pick height, lift travel, clearance envelope and the datum the vehicle locates against — and design the frame to suit it. Send the OEM handling drawing or the interface section of the integration documentation and we will design to that.
Sometimes, and it is worth assessing before committing to new units. The questions are whether the existing frame can hold the required tolerance at the handling feature, and whether it is consistent across the fleet. Where units were built to varying dimensions over several batches, retrofitting often costs more than standardising on a new engineered type.
That is set by your vehicle and its approach method rather than by us — the platform’s integration documentation defines the acceptable positional window. Our part is designing and manufacturing a frame that stays inside it, and that keeps holding it across repeated cycles rather than only when new.
Yes. Robots that lift a cart from underneath constrain ground clearance, castor position, deck height and the footprint the vehicle has to drive beneath, so those become fixed inputs to the design rather than outcomes of it. We work back from the vehicle envelope and the aisle geometry.
Build to a retained drawing and hold the interface features to it. We keep drawings for repeat production, so a fleet expansion or a replacement unit is manufactured to the same specification as the original batch. That is the practical difference between a fleet that scales and one that starts dropping picks.
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