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

Pallet conveyors are a elementary element in materials dealing with and finish of line operations. Choosing the proper conveyor can have a direct impression on delivery occasions, facility structure, and general productiveness.

The best pallet conveyor can scale back wasteful guide labor steps, optimize your house, and even open the doorways to automated palletizing options. Nevertheless, the improper selection may result in larger 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 choosing the right 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 choice. It may be a strategic transfer to reinforce your materials dealing with course of.

In case you are utilizing guide palletizing — the place employees stack pallets with merchandise — the suitable conveyor will help to scale back harmful ergonomic points that may result in bodily harm and even impression worker psychological well being.

Ryan Weaver, VP of Business at Robotiq, explains:
“Palletizing is without doubt one of the most labor-intensive duties within the manufacturing and delivery course of. The excessive danger of harm from repeatedly selecting and stacking heavy bins makes it a danger for the corporate. Moreover, the boring and repetitive nature of the duty means it is exhausting to seek out and retain employees keen to do the job.”

In case you are utilizing automated palletizing, there are various further advantages. The best 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 widespread pallet issues like loading inefficiency, misalignment, product injury, 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 very best 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, it’s essential to resolve if you’ll use a guide palletizing course of or an automatic one. This will 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.

Guide 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 affords 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 Present 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 all the time counsel earlier than folks add new expertise.

Robotiq’s Software Professional Marc-Antoine Lacasse explains the significance of this step in our free palletizing eLearning course:

“Guide job mapping is step one to actually perceive the appliance properly. 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 word which duties have been value-added and which have been downtimes.”

To assist with this, obtain our free guide job map template.

Step 3: Determine on Centralized or Decentralized Palletizing

You need to then take a step again and take a look at how your palletizing cell suits within the general circulate of your total facility. Particularly, resolve in case you are 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 may reduce the ground house required on your palletizing cell. Nevertheless, it’d require a extra complicated community of conveyors when you’ve got numerous product traces.

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

Step 4: Outline the Conveyor’s Position

To decide on the suitable 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 unfastened 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 sort 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 properly suited to drag practice 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?
Atmosphere — 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 velocity — How shortly 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 selection? For instance, are objects delicate, heavy, or require particular therapy.

The choices you make now will provide help to slim down the choices.

Step 6: Choose the Appropriate Kind of Conveyor

Now, it is time to have a look at the various kinds of conveyor and examine them in opposition to the wants of your utility.

A number 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 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 — Much 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 usually used within the automotive trade.

Step 7: Think about the Palletizing Cell Structure

Your palletizing cell structure can have an incredible impression 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 parts, the peak of the conveyor, and dimensions of the pallets.

Robotiq Purposes Engineer Gabriel Boucher explains:

“The structure of a palletizing cell is often pretty easy. Nevertheless, 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 on your new conveyor system is important for making knowledgeable choices. By analyzing the long-term impression, it helps you justify the preliminary value and in addition demonstrates the financial savings you can also make.

Robotic palletizing usually permits you to get a sooner payback interval than merely buying a conveyor for guide palletizing.

Our ROI calculator permits you to 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. Development usually brings elevated throughput and new necessities on your finish of line processes.

Versatile options, corresponding to these constructed with modular parts, permit you to simply combine further parts 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

In case you are 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 does not have to be a tricky choice. With the suitable steerage and a transparent understanding of the chances, you possibly can guarantee seamless integration that addresses each your quick 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.

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 in addition builds adaptability into your operations, enabling you to remain aggressive in at the moment’s altering markets.

Contact us at the moment to debate your palletizing concepts and learn how we are able to take your materials dealing with course of to the subsequent degree!