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 delivery occasions, facility structure, and general productiveness.
The correct pallet conveyor can cut back wasteful guide labor steps, optimize your house, and even open the doorways to automated palletizing options. Nevertheless, the flawed 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 on your palletizing.
Laying the Groundwork for an Improved Palletizing Course of
Deciding on the fitting conveyor is greater than only a sensible buying resolution. It may be a strategic transfer to reinforce your materials dealing with course of.
If you’re utilizing guide palletizing — the place employees stack pallets with merchandise — the fitting conveyor may also help to scale back harmful ergonomic points that may result in bodily damage 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 delivery course of. The excessive danger of damage from repeatedly selecting and stacking heavy packing containers makes it a danger for the corporate. Moreover, the uninteresting and repetitive nature of the duty means it is exhausting to search out and retain employees prepared to do the job.”
If you’re utilizing automated palletizing, there are lots of further advantages. The correct conveyor may also 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 cut 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 preferrred 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 will help 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 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 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 funds 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 out to be a powerful strategic transfer for a lot of firms 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 at all times recommend earlier than individuals add new know-how.
Robotiq’s Software 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 the whole course of and observe which duties have been value-added and which have been downtimes.”
To assist with this, obtain our free guide activity map template.
Step 3: Determine on Centralized or Decentralized Palletizing
It is best to then take a step again and take a look at how your palletizing cell suits within the general circulate 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 strategy for high-volumes and may decrease the ground house required on your palletizing cell. Nevertheless, it would require a extra advanced community of conveyors when you have numerous product traces.
Decentralized palletizing deploys smaller, unbiased palletizing stations for processing single or small numbers of product traces. This may permit for larger flexibility however might require a bigger funding upfront.
Step 4: Outline the Conveyor’s Function
To decide on the fitting pallet conveyor, begin by defining its particular function. This must be pretty simple after going by means of 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 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?
- Setting — 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 rapidly 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 alternative? For instance, are objects delicate, heavy, or require particular remedy.
The choices you make now will make it easier to slim down the choices.
Step 6: Decide the Appropriate Sort of Conveyor
Now, it is time to have a look at the several types of conveyor and examine them in opposition to the wants of your utility.
A few of the many conveyor varieties embody:
- 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 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 business.
Step 7: Think about the Palletizing Cell Format
Your palletizing cell structure can have an amazing affect on efficiency. By minimizing pointless actions, you possibly can 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 components, 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 are able to enhance the cycle time by merely shifting 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 crucial for making knowledgeable choices. By analyzing the long-term affect, it helps you justify the preliminary value 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 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. Progress usually brings elevated throughput and new necessities on your finish of line processes.
Versatile options, comparable to these constructed with modular parts, permit you to simply combine further components 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 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, you will need to select the fitting automation answer.
Investing in palletizing automation would not should be a troublesome resolution. With the fitting steerage and a transparent understanding of the chances, you possibly can guarantee seamless integration that addresses each your fast wants and future scalability.
Learn our The Automated Palletizing Purchaser’s Information to get a easy, action-oriented information by means of 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 in addition builds adaptability into your operations, enabling you to remain aggressive in immediately’s altering markets.
Contact us immediately to debate your palletizing concepts and learn the way we are able to take your materials dealing with course of to the subsequent degree!
What kind of conveyors have you ever tried? Inform us within the feedback under or be part of the dialogue on LinkedIn or Fb.
