Pallet conveyors are a elementary element in materials dealing with and finish of line operations. Selecting the best conveyor can have a direct influence on delivery occasions, facility structure, and general productiveness.
The appropriate pallet conveyor can scale back wasteful handbook labor steps, optimize your area, and even open the doorways to automated palletizing options. Nonetheless, the fallacious alternative might 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 selecting the correct conveyor in 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 boost your materials dealing with course of.
In case you are utilizing handbook palletizing — the place staff stack pallets with merchandise — the fitting conveyor will help to scale back harmful ergonomic points that may result in bodily damage and even influence worker psychological well being.
Ryan Weaver, VP of Industrial at Robotiq, explains:
“Palletizing is among the most labor-intensive duties within the manufacturing and delivery course of. The excessive danger of damage from repeatedly choosing and stacking heavy bins makes it a danger for the corporate. Moreover, the boring and repetitive nature of the duty means it is onerous to seek out and retain staff prepared to do the job.”
In case you are utilizing automated palletizing, there are a lot of additional advantages. The appropriate conveyor will help to optimize your automated course of to create a seamless, environment friendly workflow. When mixed with robotic palletizing, the conveyor types 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 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 supreme 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 in your finish of line:
Step 1: Determine on Automated or Handbook Palletizing
First, you have 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 efficient time to consider it.
Handbook palletizing is a viable possibility for small-scale operations with rare packaging calls for or price range constraints. On this case, you’ll search for conveyors that improve handbook palletizing.
Automated palletizing affords vital benefits, together with higher packing consistency, enhanced office security, and room for scalable development. Robotic palletizing has change into a robust strategic transfer for a lot of corporations 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. This can be a key step within the Lean Robotics Framework that we at all times recommend earlier than folks add new know-how.
Robotiq’s Software Knowledgeable 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 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 entire 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 movement of your complete facility. Particularly, determine 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 might decrease the ground area required in your palletizing cell. Nonetheless, it would require a extra advanced community of conveyors if in case you have numerous product traces.
Decentralized palletizing deploys smaller, unbiased palletizing stations for processing single or small numbers of product traces. This may enable for larger flexibility however might require a bigger funding upfront.
Step 4: Outline the Conveyor’s Position
To decide on the fitting pallet conveyor, begin by defining its particular goal. This ought to 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 may affect the kind of conveyor?
Every pallet sort has distinctive traits that may have an effect on your alternative of conveyor. For instance, pallets with fashioned toes can improve the soundness 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 varieties. Earlier than even wanting 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?
- Surroundings — 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 pace — How shortly do objects want to maneuver to maintain the proper cadence inside your product workflow?
- Object properties — What properties of the merchandise themselves may have an effect on conveyor alternative? For instance, are objects delicate, heavy, or require particular therapy.
The choices you make now will assist you slim 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 in opposition to the wants of your software.
A number of the many conveyor varieties embrace:
- Chain pushed conveyors — These are pushed by chains and are perfect for robust, soiled environments and high-load pallets.
- Drag chain conveyors — As a substitute 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 usually used within the automotive business.
Step 7: Take into account the Palletizing Cell Structure
Your palletizing cell structure can have an incredible influence on efficiency. By minimizing pointless actions, you’ll be able to optimize your cycle time and enhance effectivity, particularly with robotic palletizing.
Varied 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 Purposes Engineer Gabriel Boucher explains:
“The structure of a palletizing cell is usually 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 in your new conveyor system is crucial for making knowledgeable selections. By analyzing the long-term influence, it helps you justify the preliminary price and likewise demonstrates the financial savings you may make.
Robotic palletizing usually permits you to get a sooner payback interval than merely buying a conveyor for handbook palletizing.
Our ROI calculator permits you to get a transparent understanding of prices, financial savings, and timeframes so you’ll be able to 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 usually brings elevated throughput and new necessities in your finish of line processes.
Versatile options, similar to these constructed with modular elements, will let you simply combine additional 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 straightforward to scale and optimize palletizing lengthy into the longer term.
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, it is very important select the fitting automation answer.
Investing in palletizing automation does not must be a tricky choice. With the fitting steering and a transparent understanding of the probabilities, you’ll be able to 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.
Have to 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 subsequent stage!
What sort of conveyors have you ever tried? Inform us within the feedback under or be part of the dialogue on LinkedIn or Fb.
