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200,000 EMKA hinges secure hygienic protective walls for cash desks


Compliance with hygiene measures is a top priority in the Corona pandemic - especially in the retail sector, where flexible hygiene protective walls have been protecting customers and employees in the checkout area since the beginning of the pandemic. The manufacturer of checkout counters, ITAB Harr, has now retrofitted acrylic glass systems for hygiene protection in all its customers‘ stores. The company relies on detachable 180° screw-on hinges from EMKA to install the protective walls. 200,000 pieces were installed at the end of August at around 14,000 cash desks in German stores of Europes’ largest discounter.

SUCCESS STORY: RETAIL RELIES ON COVID-19 PROTECTION SYSTEMS FROM ITAB HARR

The Corona pandemic has changed the shopping experience in supermarkets. Many new rules, recommendations and regulations for hygiene-conscious and safe shopping were created. The measures range from entrance restrictions to distance markings on the floor to hygienic protection walls attached to the checkout desks. Especially the hygienic protection walls protect customers and employees from being infected with Sars-CoV-2 by droplet
infection.

This was also the requirement for Europes’ largest discounter stores in Germany: the company described the need for appropriate hygiene protection walls to its partner ITAB Harr, a manufacturer of checkout counters and shopfitting solutions. When looking for a connecting element for the solution presented, a system of several acrylic glass elements, the hinge and closure experts from EMKA were chosen. The world market leader for closure solutions has been working with ITAB Harr for many years.

Solution convinces through easy disassembly

The main requirement of the EMKA solution concept was an easy disassembly of the system. On the one hand, the hinges should securely connect the individual segments of the acrylic glass hygienic protection walls, on the other
hand, they should be easy to unhinge - if possible, also by the cashier - for example in a low-infection period such as summer. The detachable 180° screw-on hinges 1056-U55 and 1056-U56, consisting of two hinge halves in die-cast zinc, a black polyamide disk and a hinge pin made of stainless steel, were convincing. These hinges have already been used in the respective stores before at the entrance door of the cash desks and have therefore proven themselves in use for many years.

200,000 hinges delivered in shortest time

After the first inquiry and order placement in June 2020 EMKA convinced with short reaction times and high production depth: The major order for 200,000 hinges was completed in only ten weeks, including the production at the Bosnian site in Goražde and delivery. Already since the end of August, 14,000 cash desks in the discounter stores have been equipped with the hygienic protection walls with EMKA hinges as connecting elements. A total of 14 hinges per hygiene protection wall are now used at one checkout unit. They ensure that the system is extremely easy to disassemble and that employees can easily detach individual segments if necessary.