How you can Select the Proper Pallet Conveyor in 10 Steps

Pallet conveyors are a basic element in materials dealing with and finish of line operations. Selecting the best conveyor can have a direct impression on transport instances, facility structure, and total productiveness.

The proper pallet conveyor can scale back wasteful guide labor steps, optimize your area, and even open the doorways to automated palletizing options. Nevertheless, the flawed alternative might result in greater 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 on your palletizing.

Laying the Groundwork for an Improved Palletizing Course of

Deciding on the precise conveyor is greater than only a sensible buying choice. 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 precise conveyor may also help to scale back harmful ergonomic points that may result in bodily harm and even impression worker psychological well being.

Ryan Weaver, VP of Industrial at Robotiq, explains:
“Palletizing is without doubt 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 packing containers makes it a threat for the corporate. Moreover, the uninteresting and repetitive nature of the duty means it is onerous to seek out and retain employees keen to do the job.”

If you’re utilizing automated palletizing, there are numerous additional advantages. The proper conveyor may also 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 frequent pallet issues like loading inefficiency, misalignment, product injury, 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 ideally suited pallet conveyor requires a transparent understanding of your operational wants, future targets, 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: Resolve on Automated or Guide Palletizing

First, you could determine if you’ll use a guide palletizing course of or an automatic one. This may 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 efficient time to consider it.

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

Automated palletizing presents important benefits, together with higher packing consistency, enhanced office security, and room for scalable progress. Robotic palletizing has develop into a powerful strategic transfer for a lot of firms within the final 5 years.

Step 2: Map Your Present 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 at all times recommend earlier than folks add new expertise.

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

“Guide process 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 depart the cell? Take the time to finish all the course of and be aware which duties have been value-added and which have been downtimes.”

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

Step 3: Resolve on Centralized or Decentralized Palletizing

You must then take a step again and take a look at how your palletizing cell matches within the total move of your total facility. Particularly, determine in case you are 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 might reduce the ground area required on your palletizing cell. Nevertheless, it’d require a extra advanced community of conveyors when you’ve got a whole lot of product strains.

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

Step 4: Outline the Conveyor’s Function

To decide on the precise pallet conveyor, begin by defining its particular goal. This must be pretty simple after going by the earlier steps.

Ask questions like:

• Will the conveyor transport free 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 alternative of conveyor. For instance, pallets with fashioned ft can improve the soundness and longevity of storage, and are nicely suited to drag practice 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 gadgets that the conveyor will transport?
• Setting — Is the atmosphere soiled or contain excessive or low temperatures?
• Loading and unloading procedures — How will gadgets be loaded onto the conveyor and unloaded at their vacation spot?**
• Conveyor pace — How rapidly do gadgets 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 alternative? For instance, are gadgets delicate, heavy, or require particular remedy.

The choices you make now will assist you to slender down the choices.

Step 6: Choose the Appropriate Kind of Conveyor

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

A few of the many conveyor sorts 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 sequence, these pull the load. They’re comparatively compact and work nicely 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 — Just like chain conveyors, these use a plastic belt as a substitute of a sequence. 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 structure can have an amazing impression on efficiency. By minimizing pointless actions, you may optimize your cycle time and enhance effectivity, particularly with robotic palletizing.

Varied structure elements 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 usually pretty easy. Nevertheless, some small modifications 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 impression, it helps you justify the preliminary price and likewise demonstrates the financial savings you can also 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 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 deciding on a conveyor, take into consideration the way you want to scale your palletizing operations sooner or later. Development usually brings elevated throughput and new necessities on your finish of line processes.

Versatile options, equivalent to these constructed with modular parts, let you simply combine additional parts to your palletizing cell to deal with such modifications. This flexibility is why so many firms are turning to collaborative robotic palletizing. The inherent flexibility of such robotic options makes it simple to scale and optimize palletizing lengthy into the longer term.

Step 10: Put money into the Proper Automation Options

If you’re contemplating automating your palletizing in addition to including a brand new conveyor, it is very important select the precise automation resolution.

Investing in palletizing automation does not should be a troublesome choice. With the precise steering and a transparent understanding of the chances, you may guarantee seamless integration that addresses each your speedy 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 right this moment’s altering markets.

Contact us right this 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 beneath or be part of the dialogue on LinkedIn or Fb.