The handling of sacks made of all types of materials, regardless of their contents, is generally very hard work which in many cases endangers the health of the workers charged with the task. Even young and healthy persons should not overdo the manual handling of sacks, since the negative effects of the strenuous work often become evident after many years.

A much easier, quicker and more efficient method of handling sacks is with the aid of the vacuum tube lifters of the Jumbo series which the vacuum and handling specialists J. Schmalz GmbH in D-72293 Glatten have been selling for many years. In the course of time, and as the result of continual, practically oriented further developments, Schmalz have built up a complete family of Jumbo vacuum tube lifters, and one of these is called the "Sprint". The origin of this name is that the lifter has a special operator handle which permits positioning of the gripper on the workpiece with both hands and also simplifies the handling of the workpiece. Such a vacuum handling system, such as one for the handling of sacks, is normally constructed from standardised components, namely a vacuum tube lifter Jumbo, the operator handle JumboSprint, a crane with a suitable jib, a sack gripper and, last but not least, a vacuum generator.

Schmalz not only supply the individual components or the complete vacuum handling system: if desired, they will also carry out a material-flow analysis, plan the system, manufacture and install the system and provide after-sales service. This complete service convinced Messrs. PolyOne Th. Bergmann GmbH in Gaggenau when they were looking for a solution for the handling and palleting of sacks weighing up to 25 kg each. PolyOne manufactures technical thermoplasts and thermoplastic elastomers and delivers these in the form of plastic granulate in sacks stacked on pallets. In the past, workers lifted the sacks from the filling station and stacked them manually on the pallets. Today, this hard work is done by the vacuum handling system, making life much easier for the workers.

The vacuum handling system at PolyOne consist of a vacuum tube lifter JumboSprint 35 with a universal sack gripper, a vacuum generator "Schmalz Blower SB-M" and a wall-mounted slewing crane with a jib length of 3,500 mm. The sacks, which are made of heavy plastic material, are relatively easy to grip, lift, move and position, since there is little deformation of the sacks. Thanks to the new high-performance blower SB-M, a worker can quickly lift and move the sacks with the aid of the vacuum tube lifter. This results in a considerable improvement in the throughput without demanding excessive effort on the part of the worker. The reliability of the vacuum handling system and the economical and ergonomical benefits of the system were so convincing that PolyOne quickly equipped all of the relevant production and filling  stations with JumboSprint 35 devices. Today, seven such devices are in use.