Pallet conveyors are a basic element in materials dealing with and finish of line operations. Choosing the proper conveyor can have a direct affect on transport occasions, facility structure, and general productiveness.
The correct pallet conveyor can scale back wasteful guide labor steps, optimize your area, and even open the doorways to automated palletizing options. Nevertheless, the incorrect selection may result in increased 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 choosing the right conveyor on your palletizing.
Laying the Groundwork for an Improved Palletizing Course of
Choosing the fitting conveyor is greater than only a sensible buying choice. It may be a strategic transfer to reinforce your materials dealing with course of.
In case you are utilizing guide palletizing — the place staff stack pallets with merchandise — the fitting conveyor can assist to cut back harmful ergonomic points that may result in bodily harm and even affect worker psychological well being.
Ryan Weaver, VP of Industrial at Robotiq, explains:
“Palletizing is likely one of the most labor-intensive duties within the manufacturing and transport course of. The excessive threat of harm from repeatedly selecting and stacking heavy containers makes it a threat for the corporate. Moreover, the uninteresting and repetitive nature of the duty means it is exhausting to search out and retain staff prepared to do the job.”
In case you are utilizing automated palletizing, there are lots of additional advantages. The correct conveyor can assist 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 scale 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 very best 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 can assist you make clear which pallet conveyor will meet each your present and future imaginative and prescient on your finish of line:
Step 1: Determine on Automated or Handbook Palletizing
First, you need to resolve if you’ll use a guide palletizing course of or an automatic one. This will radically have an effect on the selection of conveyor. If you have not thought of automating your palletizing course of earlier than, now is an efficient time to consider it.
Handbook 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 gives vital benefits, together with higher packing consistency, enhanced office security, and room for scalable development. Robotic palletizing has grow to be a robust strategic transfer for a lot of corporations 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 all the time counsel earlier than folks add new know-how.
Robotiq’s Utility Professional Marc-Antoine Lacasse explains the significance of this step in our free palletizing eLearning course:
“Handbook 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 your complete course of and observe which duties had been value-added and which had been downtimes.”
To assist with this, obtain our free manual task map template.
Step 3: Determine on Centralized or Decentralized Palletizing
You need to then take a step again and take a look at how your palletizing cell matches within the general circulation of your total facility. Particularly, resolve if you’re utilizing centralized or decentralized palletizing.
Centralized palletizing entails gathering all product traces right into a single location. This may be an environment friendly method for high-volumes and may decrease the ground area required on your palletizing cell. Nevertheless, it would require a extra complicated community of conveyors when you have a variety of product traces.
Decentralized palletizing deploys smaller, impartial palletizing stations for processing single or small numbers of product traces. This will enable for higher flexibility however could require a bigger funding upfront.
Step 4: Outline the Conveyor’s Function
To decide on the fitting pallet conveyor, begin by defining its particular objective. This must be pretty easy after going via 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 type has distinctive traits that may have an effect on your selection of conveyor. For instance, pallets with shaped ft can improve the steadiness and longevity of storage, and are properly suited to drag train 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 atmosphere 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 shortly do objects want to maneuver to maintain the right 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 therapy.
The choices you make now will provide help to slender down the choices.
Step 6: Decide the Appropriate Sort of Conveyor
Now, it is time to take a look at the several types of conveyor and examine them towards the wants of your utility.
Among the many conveyor types include:
- Chain pushed conveyors — These are pushed by chains and are perfect for powerful, 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 mild hundreds.
- Slat conveyors — Comprising a chain-driven loop of slats, these present a inflexible, flat floor. They’re usually used within the automotive trade.
Step 7: Take into account the Palletizing Cell Format
Your palletizing cell layout 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 structure components can have an effect on the cycle time, together with distances between parts, the peak of the conveyor, and dimensions of the pallets.
Robotiq Functions Engineer Gabriel Boucher explains:
“The structure of a palletizing cell is often pretty easy. Nevertheless, some small adjustments will have an effect on the efficiency of the cell rather a lot. We will enhance the cycle time by merely transferring round some parts.”
Step 8: Calculate the Return on Funding (ROI)
Understanding the return on funding (ROI) and payback interval on your new conveyor system is important for making knowledgeable choices. By analyzing the long-term affect, it helps you justify the preliminary value and in addition demonstrates the financial savings you may make.
Robotic palletizing usually lets you get a quicker payback interval than merely buying a conveyor for guide palletizing.
Our ROI calculator lets you get a transparent understanding of prices, financial savings, and timeframes so you may work out how shortly 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 want to scale your palletizing operations sooner or later. Progress usually brings elevated throughput and new necessities on your finish of line processes.
Versatile options, similar to these constructed with modular elements, can help you simply combine additional parts to your palletizing cell to deal with such adjustments. This flexibility is why so many corporations are turning to collaborative robot palletizing. The inherent flexibility of such robotic options makes it straightforward to scale and optimize palletizing lengthy into the long run.
Step 10: Put money into the Proper Automation Options
In case you are contemplating automating your palletizing in addition to including a brand new conveyor, you will need to select the fitting automation resolution.
Investing in palletizing automation would not have to be a tricky choice. With the fitting steering and a transparent understanding of the probabilities, you may guarantee seamless integration that addresses each your quick wants and future scalability.
Learn our The Automated Palletizing Buyer’s Guide to get a easy, action-oriented information via this course of.
Have to 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 solutions 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 how we will take your materials dealing with course of to the following stage!
What kind of conveyors have you ever tried? Inform us within the feedback under or be a part of the dialogue on LinkedIn or Facebook.
