A material layup apparatus (100) for producing wind turbine blades using fiber plies (31), comprising a first gantry (1) with a transversal beam (11) extending over a mold receiving space (10). The first gantry (1) comprising at least one gripping unit (4a,4b) attached to the transversal beam (11) and being moveable both in the transversal direction (T) and in a vertical direction (V) so as to be lowerable into and retractable from the mold receiving space (10). Further, the material layup apparatus (100) has a second gantry (2) comprising a transversal beam (21) extending over the mold receiving space (10) providing a storage area (24) for a stack (3) of fiber plies (31). The second gantry (2) is adapted to be moveable in the longitudinal direction (L) into a ply-pickup position in that the storage area (24) of the second gantry (2) is arranged under the at least one gripping unit (4a, 4b) of the first gantry (1) so that at least one ply (31) of the fiber plies (31) provided on the stack (3) of fiber plies (31) can be picked up by the at least one gripping unit (4a, 4b).
Thus, a transversal material layup that currently includes many process steps that include manual labor can be automated and by that productivity as well as safety can be increased.