Pallet conveyors are a basic part in materials dealing with and finish of line operations. Choosing the proper conveyor can have a direct affect on delivery instances, facility format, and total productiveness.
The fitting pallet conveyor can cut back wasteful handbook labor steps, optimize your area, and even open the doorways to automated palletizing options. Nevertheless, the mistaken selection may 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 in your palletizing.
Laying the Groundwork for an Improved Palletizing Course of
Choosing the suitable conveyor is greater than only a sensible buying choice. It may be a strategic transfer to reinforce your materials dealing with course of.
If you’re utilizing handbook palletizing — the place employees 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 Industrial at Robotiq, explains:
“Palletizing is likely one of the most labor-intensive duties within the manufacturing and delivery course of. The excessive threat of harm from repeatedly selecting and stacking heavy containers makes it a threat for the corporate. Moreover, the boring and repetitive nature of the duty means it is onerous to seek out and retain employees prepared to do the job.”
If you’re utilizing automated palletizing, there are lots of further advantages. The fitting 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 cut back widespread 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 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 in your finish of line:
Step 1: Determine on Automated or Handbook Palletizing
First, you will need to determine if you’ll use a handbook palletizing course of or an automatic one. This could 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 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 handbook palletizing.
Automated palletizing provides vital 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 handbook course of. This can be a key step within the Lean Robotics Framework that we all the time recommend earlier than individuals add new expertise.
Robotiq’s Software Skilled Marc-Antoine Lacasse explains the significance of this step in our free palletizing eLearning course:
“Handbook 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 the whole course of and word which duties had been value-added and which had been downtimes.”
To assist with this, obtain our free handbook process map template.
Step 3: Determine on Centralized or Decentralized Palletizing
It’s best to then take a step again and take a look at how your palletizing cell suits within the total circulate of your total facility. Particularly, determine if you’re utilizing centralized or decentralized palletizing.
Centralized palletizing includes gathering all product traces right into a single location. This may be an environment friendly strategy for high-volumes and might reduce the ground area required in your palletizing cell. Nevertheless, it would require a extra complicated community of conveyors you probably have plenty of product traces.
Decentralized palletizing deploys smaller, unbiased palletizing stations for processing single or small numbers of product traces. This could enable for better 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 objective. This needs 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 would possibly 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 shaped ft 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 varieties. Earlier than even trying 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 setting 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 would possibly have an effect on conveyor selection? For instance, are objects delicate, heavy, or require particular therapy.
The selections you make now will show you how 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 evaluate 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 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 — Just like chain conveyors, these use a plastic belt as a substitute of a sequence. This makes them quieter and appropriate for mild masses.
- Slat conveyors — Comprising a chain-driven loop of slats, these present a inflexible, flat floor. They’re typically used within the automotive trade.
Step 7: Think about 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 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 Purposes Engineer Gabriel Boucher explains:
“The format of a palletizing cell is usually pretty easy. Nevertheless, some small adjustments will have an effect on the efficiency of the cell rather a lot. 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 in your new conveyor system is important for making knowledgeable choices. By analyzing the long-term affect, it helps you justify the preliminary value and in addition demonstrates the financial savings you can also make.
Robotic palletizing typically means that you can get a quicker payback interval than merely buying a conveyor for handbook palletizing.
Our ROI calculator means that you can get a transparent understanding of prices, financial savings, and timeframes so you possibly can 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 want to scale your palletizing operations sooner or later. Progress typically brings elevated throughput and new necessities in your finish of line processes.
Versatile options, similar to these constructed with modular elements, mean you can simply combine further 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 longer term.
Step 10: Spend money on 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 answer.
Investing in palletizing automation would not have to be a troublesome choice. 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 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 as we speak’s altering markets.
Contact us as we speak to debate your palletizing concepts and learn how we are able to take your materials dealing with course of to the following 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.