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 transport instances, facility structure, and general productiveness.
The suitable pallet conveyor can scale 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 in your palletizing.
Laying the Groundwork for an Improved Palletizing Course of
Choosing the precise conveyor is greater than only a sensible buying determination. It may be a strategic transfer to reinforce your materials dealing with course of.
If you’re utilizing guide palletizing — the place staff stack pallets with merchandise — the precise conveyor may help to scale back harmful ergonomic points that may result in bodily damage 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 transport course of. The excessive danger of damage from repeatedly selecting and stacking heavy packing containers 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.”
If you’re utilizing automated palletizing, there are various further advantages. The suitable conveyor may 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 harm, 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 perfect pallet conveyor requires a transparent understanding of your operational wants, future objectives, and constraints that have an effect on the deployment.
Listed below are 10 steps that will help 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 should resolve 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 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 guide palletizing.
Automated palletizing provides important benefits, together with higher packing consistency, enhanced office security, and room for scalable development. Robotic palletizing has develop into a robust strategic transfer for a lot of firms within the final 5 years.
Step 2: Map Your Current Course of First
Earlier than choosing 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 counsel earlier than individuals add new know-how.
Robotiq’s Utility 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 appliance properly. Ask questions like: What’s the subsequent step within the manufacturing line? How does the pallet depart the cell? Take the time to finish your complete course of and word which duties have been value-added and which have been downtimes.”
To assist with this, obtain our free guide process map template.
Step 3: Determine on Centralized or Decentralized Palletizing
You must then take a step again and take a look at how your palletizing cell matches within the general stream of your total facility. Particularly, resolve 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 house required in your palletizing cell. Nevertheless, it would require a extra advanced community of conveyors in case you have plenty of 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 Position
To decide on the precise pallet conveyor, begin by defining its particular objective. This must be pretty simple after going by way of the earlier steps.
Ask questions like:
- Will the conveyor transport unfastened 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 alternative of conveyor. For instance, pallets with fashioned ft can improve the soundness and longevity of storage, and are properly 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 gadgets that the conveyor will transport?
- Surroundings — 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 velocity — 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 alternative? For instance, are gadgets delicate, heavy, or require particular therapy.
The selections you make now will assist you slim down the choices.
Step 6: Choose the Appropriate Kind of Conveyor
Now, it is time to take a look at the various kinds of conveyor and examine them in opposition to the wants of your software.
A few of the many conveyor varieties embody:
- Chain pushed conveyors — These are pushed by chains and are perfect for powerful, 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 properly 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 gentle 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 structure 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 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 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 may make.
Robotic palletizing typically means that you can get a quicker payback interval than merely buying a conveyor for guide 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 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 choosing a conveyor, take into consideration the way you wish to scale your palletizing operations sooner or later. Development typically brings elevated throughput and new necessities in your finish of line processes.
Versatile options, corresponding to these constructed with modular parts, can help you 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 straightforward 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 answer.
Investing in palletizing automation does not should be a troublesome determination. With the precise steering and a transparent understanding of the chances, you possibly can guarantee seamless integration that addresses each your instant wants and future scalability.
Learn our The Automated Palletizing Purchaser’s Information to get a easy, action-oriented information by way of this course of.
Have to automate palletizing as properly?
At Robotiq, we assist producers with automated palletizing options that mix the velocity, 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 now’s altering markets.
Contact us right now 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 a part of the dialogue on LinkedIn or Fb.