Methods to Select the Proper Pallet Conveyor in 10 Steps

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 suitable pallet conveyor can scale back wasteful guide labor steps, optimize your area, and even open the doorways to automated palletizing options. Nonetheless, the improper selection might result in greater prices, wasteful inefficiencies, and stock bottlenecks .

That can assist you keep away from these pitfalls, this information walks you thru the ten important steps for choosing the right conveyor to your palletizing.

Laying the Groundwork for an Improved Palletizing Course of

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

In case you are utilizing guide palletizing — the place employees stack pallets with merchandise — the proper conveyor will help to cut back harmful ergonomic points that may result in bodily harm and even affect worker psychological well being.

Ryan Weaver, VP of Business at Robotiq, explains:
“Palletizing is among the most labor-intensive duties within the manufacturing and transport course of. The excessive danger of harm from repeatedly selecting 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.”

In case you are utilizing automated palletizing, there are lots of further advantages. The suitable conveyor will help to optimize your automated course of to create a seamless, environment friendly workflow. When mixed with robotic palletizing, the conveyor varieties a system that helps scale back widespread pallet issues like loading inefficiency, misalignment, product harm, and inconsistent pallet high quality.

Whether or not you’re 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 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 to your finish of line:

Step 1: Resolve on Automated or Handbook Palletizing

First, you have to determine 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-about automating your palletizing course of earlier than, now is an effective time to consider it.

Handbook palletizing is a viable choice for small-scale operations with rare packaging calls for or finances 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 development. Robotic palletizing has turn into a robust strategic transfer for a lot of corporations within the final 5 years.

Step 2: Map Your Current Course of First

Earlier than deciding on a conveyor, take time to map out your present guide course of. This can be a key step within the Lean Robotics Framework that we all the time recommend earlier than folks add new know-how.

Robotiq’s Utility Skilled 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 applying nicely. Ask questions like: What’s the subsequent step within the manufacturing line? How does the pallet go away the cell? Take the time to finish your complete course of and notice 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 is best to then take a step again and have a look at how your palletizing cell matches within the general circulation 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 decrease the ground area required to your palletizing cell. Nonetheless, it would require a extra complicated community of conveyors when you’ve got a number of product strains.

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

Step 4: Outline the Conveyor’s Function

To decide on the proper pallet conveyor, begin by defining its particular goal. 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 sort has distinctive traits that may have an effect on your selection of conveyor. For instance, pallets with fashioned toes can improve the steadiness and longevity of storage, and are nicely suited to drag prepare conveyors.

Step 5: Make clear the Operational Properties of Your Conveyor

There’s a staggering variety of conveyor sorts. Earlier than even trying on the particular person sorts, 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 pace — 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 selections you make now will enable you slender down the choices.

Step 6: Choose the Appropriate Sort of Conveyor

Now, it is time to have a look at the various kinds of conveyor and examine them towards the wants of your utility.

A few of the many conveyor sorts embrace:

• 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 nicely in high-temperature environments.
• Plastic belt powered conveyors — These are perfect for masses 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 masses.
• 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: Take into account the Palletizing Cell Format

Your palletizing cell structure can have an amazing 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. Nonetheless, some small modifications will have an effect on the efficiency of the cell quite a bit. We will enhance the cycle time by merely shifting round some parts.”

Step 8: Calculate the Return on Funding (ROI)

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

Robotic palletizing typically lets you get a sooner 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 deciding on a conveyor, take into consideration the way you wish to scale your palletizing operations sooner or later. Progress typically brings elevated throughput and new necessities to your finish of line processes.

Versatile options, resembling these constructed with modular parts, let you simply combine further parts to your palletizing cell to deal with such modifications. This flexibility is why so many corporations are turning to collaborative robotic palletizing. The inherent flexibility of such robotic options makes it simple 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 proper automation answer.

Investing in palletizing automation would not must be a tricky choice. With the proper 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 Purchaser’s Information to get a easy, action-oriented information by this course of.

Must automate palletizing as nicely?

At Robotiq, we assist producers with automated palletizing options that mix the pace, 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 in the present day’s altering markets.

Contact us in the present day to debate your palletizing concepts and learn the way we will take your materials dealing with course of to the following degree!

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