The right way to Select the Proper Pallet Conveyor in 10 Steps

Pallet conveyors are a basic part in materials dealing with and finish of line operations. Choosing the proper conveyor can have a direct affect on transport occasions, facility format, and general productiveness.

The proper pallet conveyor can cut back wasteful guide labor steps, optimize your house, and even open the doorways to automated palletizing options. Nonetheless, the incorrect selection may result in larger prices, wasteful inefficiencies, and stock bottlenecks .

That will help you keep away from these pitfalls, this information walks you thru the ten important steps for selecting the correct conveyor to your palletizing.

Laying the Groundwork for an Improved Palletizing Course of

Deciding on the best conveyor is greater than only a sensible buying resolution. It may be a strategic transfer to boost your materials dealing with course of.

If you’re utilizing guide palletizing — the place employees stack pallets with merchandise — the best conveyor might help to cut back harmful ergonomic points that may result in bodily damage and even affect worker psychological well being.

Ryan Weaver, VP of Industrial at Robotiq, explains:
“Palletizing is among the most labor-intensive duties within the manufacturing and transport course of. The excessive danger of damage from repeatedly choosing and stacking heavy bins makes it a danger for the corporate. Moreover, the uninteresting and repetitive nature of the duty means it is exhausting to seek out and retain employees keen to do the job.”

If you’re utilizing automated palletizing, there are various further advantages. The proper conveyor might help to optimize your automated course of to create a seamless, environment friendly workflow. When mixed with robotic palletizing, the conveyor kinds a system that helps cut back widespread pallet issues like loading inefficiency, misalignment, product harm, and inconsistent pallet high quality.

Whether or not you might be utilizing guide or automated palletizing, the conveyor lays the groundwork for an environment friendly and scalable palletizing course of.

10 Steps to Select the Proper Pallet Conveyor

Selecting your ideally suited pallet conveyor requires a transparent understanding of your operational wants, future objectives, and constraints that have an effect on the deployment.
Listed here are 10 steps that will help you make clear which pallet conveyor will meet each your present and future imaginative and prescient to your finish of line:

Step 1: Resolve on Automated or Guide Palletizing

First, you could determine if you’ll use a guide palletizing course of or an automatic one. This could radically have an effect on the selection of conveyor. If you have not thought-about automating your palletizing course of earlier than, now is an effective time to consider it.

Guide palletizing is a viable choice for small-scale operations with rare packaging calls for or price range constraints. On this case, you’ll search for conveyors that improve guide palletizing.

Automated palletizing provides important benefits, together with higher packing consistency, enhanced office security, and room for scalable progress. Robotic palletizing has turn out to be a robust strategic transfer for a lot of firms within the final 5 years.

Step 2: Map Your Present Course of First

Earlier than choosing a conveyor, take time to map out your present guide course of. It is a key step within the Lean Robotics Framework that we at all times recommend earlier than folks add new expertise.

Robotiq’s Utility Professional Marc-Antoine Lacasse explains the significance of this step in our free palletizing eLearning course:

“Guide activity mapping is step one to essentially perceive the appliance properly. Ask questions like: What’s the subsequent step within the manufacturing line? How does the pallet depart the cell? Take the time to finish the complete course of and be aware which duties had been value-added and which had been downtimes.”

To assist with this, obtain our free guide activity map template.

Step 3: Resolve on Centralized or Decentralized Palletizing

It’s best to then take a step again and take a look at how your palletizing cell matches within the general circulate of your total facility. Particularly, determine if you’re utilizing centralized or decentralized palletizing.

Centralized palletizing entails gathering all product strains right into a single location. This may be an environment friendly method for high-volumes and may reduce the ground house required to your palletizing cell. Nonetheless, it’d require a extra advanced community of conveyors if in case you have loads of product strains.

Decentralized palletizing deploys smaller, unbiased palletizing stations for processing single or small numbers of product strains. This could enable for better flexibility however might require a bigger funding upfront.

Step 4: Outline the Conveyor’s Position

To decide on the best pallet conveyor, begin by defining its particular function. This ought to be pretty easy after going by the earlier steps.

Ask questions like:

• Will the conveyor transport unfastened merchandise, pallets, or each?
• If transporting merchandise, will they be packaged or unpackaged?
• If transporting pallets, what properties of the pallets themselves would possibly affect the kind of conveyor?

Every pallet kind has distinctive traits that may have an effect on your selection of conveyor. For instance, pallets with shaped toes can improve the steadiness and longevity of storage, and are properly suited to drag practice conveyors.

Step 5: Make clear the Operational Properties of Your Conveyor

There’s a staggering variety of conveyor varieties. Earlier than even trying on the particular person varieties, it is useful to make clear precisely what operational properties you want out of your conveyor.

For instance:

• Load capability — How heavy are the pallets or objects that the conveyor will transport?
• Atmosphere — Is the surroundings soiled or contain excessive or low temperatures?
• Loading and unloading procedures — How will objects be loaded onto the conveyor and unloaded at their vacation spot?**
• Conveyor velocity — How rapidly do objects want to maneuver to maintain the proper cadence inside your product workflow?
• Object properties — What properties of the merchandise themselves would possibly have an effect on conveyor selection? For instance, are objects delicate, heavy, or require particular remedy.

The choices you make now will show you how to slender down the choices.

Step 6: Choose the Appropriate Sort of Conveyor

Now, it is time to have a look at the several types of conveyor and evaluate them towards the wants of your software.

A number of the many conveyor varieties embody:

• Chain pushed conveyors — These are pushed by chains and are perfect for robust, soiled environments and high-load pallets.
• Drag chain conveyors — As an alternative of pulling with a series, these pull the load. They’re comparatively compact and work properly in high-temperature environments.
• Plastic belt powered conveyors — These are perfect for hundreds that may’t be supported by chains or rollers, in addition to merchandise that should not contact one another.
• Gravity conveyors — These unpowered conveyors use gravity to maneuver merchandise. They are often easy and cost-effective.
• Poly-v energy curler conveyors — Much like chain conveyors, these use a plastic belt as a substitute of a series. This makes them quieter and appropriate for gentle hundreds.
• Slat conveyors — Comprising a chain-driven loop of slats, these present a inflexible, flat floor. They’re typically used within the automotive business.

Step 7: Think about the Palletizing Cell Structure

Your palletizing cell format can have an incredible affect on efficiency. By minimizing pointless actions, you may optimize your cycle time and enhance effectivity, particularly with robotic palletizing.

Numerous format elements can have an effect on the cycle time, together with distances between components, the peak of the conveyor, and dimensions of the pallets.

Robotiq Purposes Engineer Gabriel Boucher explains:

“The format of a palletizing cell is usually pretty easy. Nonetheless, some small adjustments will have an effect on the efficiency of the cell rather a lot. We will enhance the cycle time by merely shifting round some components.”

Step 8: Calculate the Return on Funding (ROI)

Understanding the return on funding (ROI) and payback interval to your new conveyor system is crucial for making knowledgeable selections. By analyzing the long-term affect, it helps you justify the preliminary value and in addition demonstrates the financial savings you can also make.

Robotic palletizing typically permits you to get a quicker payback interval than merely buying a conveyor for guide palletizing.

Our ROI calculator permits you to get a transparent understanding of prices, financial savings, and timeframes so you may work out how rapidly your funding will repay.

Step 9: Set Your self Up for Future Scalability

Buying a pallet conveyor should not simply be a “fast repair.” When choosing a conveyor, take into consideration the way you wish to scale your palletizing operations sooner or later. Development typically brings elevated throughput and new necessities to your finish of line processes.

Versatile options, resembling these constructed with modular elements, let you simply combine further components to your palletizing cell to deal with such adjustments. This flexibility is why so many firms are turning to collaborative robotic palletizing. The inherent flexibility of such robotic options makes it straightforward to scale and optimize palletizing lengthy into the longer term.

Step 10: Spend money on the Proper Automation Options

If you’re contemplating automating your palletizing in addition to including a brand new conveyor, you will need to select the best automation resolution.

Investing in palletizing automation would not should be a tricky resolution. With the best steerage and a transparent understanding of the chances, you may guarantee seamless integration that addresses each your instant wants and future scalability.

Learn our The Automated Palletizing Purchaser’s Information to get a easy, action-oriented information by this course of.

Must automate palletizing as properly?

At Robotiq, we assist producers with automated palletizing options that mix the velocity, flexibility, and precision of robotics with easy-to-use software program.

No matter your present palletizing wants, our vary of palletizing options not solely enhances productiveness but additionally builds adaptability into your operations, enabling you to remain aggressive in at the moment’s altering markets.

Contact us at the moment to debate your palletizing concepts and learn the way we are able to take your materials dealing with course of to the following stage!

What kind of conveyors have you ever tried? Inform us within the feedback beneath or be a part of the dialogue on LinkedIn or Fb.