Find out how to Select the Proper Pallet Conveyor in 10 Steps

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

The suitable pallet conveyor can scale back wasteful handbook labor steps, optimize your house, and even open the doorways to automated palletizing options. Nevertheless, the improper selection 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 suitable conveyor is greater than only a sensible buying determination. It may be a strategic transfer to boost your materials dealing with course of.

If you’re utilizing handbook palletizing — the place staff stack pallets with merchandise — the suitable 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 likely one of the most labor-intensive duties within the manufacturing and delivery course of. The excessive danger of harm 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 staff keen to do the job.”

If you’re utilizing automated palletizing, there are various additional 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 kinds a system that helps scale back frequent pallet issues like loading inefficiency, misalignment, product injury, and inconsistent pallet high quality.

Whether or not you might be utilizing handbook 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 splendid 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: Determine on Automated or Guide Palletizing

First, you will need to determine if you’ll use a handbook 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 effective time to consider it.

Guide 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 handbook palletizing.

Automated palletizing provides important benefits, together with higher packing consistency, enhanced office security, and room for scalable progress. Robotic palletizing has change 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 handbook course of. It is a key step within the Lean Robotics Framework that we at all times recommend earlier than individuals 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 actually perceive the appliance effectively. 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 notice which duties had been value-added and which had been downtimes.”

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

Step 3: Determine on Centralized or Decentralized Palletizing

You need to then take a step again and have a look at how your palletizing cell suits within the general circulation of your complete 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 house required on your palletizing cell. Nevertheless, it would require a extra advanced community of conveyors you probably have numerous product strains.

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

Step 4: Outline the Conveyor’s Function

To decide on the suitable pallet conveyor, begin by defining its particular goal. This needs to be pretty easy after going via 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 may 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 fashioned toes can improve the steadiness and longevity of storage, and are effectively 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?
• Atmosphere — Is the surroundings 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 right cadence inside your product workflow?
• Object properties — What properties of the merchandise themselves may have an effect on conveyor selection? For instance, are gadgets delicate, heavy, or require particular therapy.

The choices you make now will aid you slim down the choices.

Step 6: Decide the Appropriate Kind of Conveyor

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

Among 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 effectively 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 an alternative of a sequence. 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 usually used within the automotive business.

Step 7: Contemplate the Palletizing Cell Structure

Your palletizing cell format can have an incredible affect on efficiency. By minimizing pointless actions, you possibly can 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 Functions Engineer Gabriel Boucher explains:

“The format of a palletizing cell is often pretty easy. Nevertheless, some small adjustments will have an effect on the efficiency of the cell quite a bit. We are able to enhance the cycle time by merely transferring round some components.”

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 likewise demonstrates the financial savings you may make.

Robotic palletizing usually lets you get a sooner payback interval than merely buying a conveyor for handbook palletizing.

Our ROI calculator lets you get a transparent understanding of prices, financial savings, and timeframes so you possibly can 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 wish 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, mean you can simply combine additional 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 simple to scale and optimize palletizing lengthy into the long run.

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 suitable automation resolution.

Investing in palletizing automation would not should be a troublesome determination. With the suitable steering and a transparent understanding of the probabilities, you possibly can 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 via this course of.

Have to automate palletizing as effectively?

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 as we speak’s altering markets.

Contact us as we speak to debate your palletizing concepts and learn how we will take your materials dealing with course of to the subsequent degree!

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