Pallet conveyors are a elementary 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 fitting pallet conveyor can cut back wasteful handbook labor steps, optimize your area, and even open the doorways to automated palletizing options. Nonetheless, the unsuitable selection 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 to your palletizing.
Laying the Groundwork for an Improved Palletizing Course of
Deciding on the proper 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 proper 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 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 harm from repeatedly choosing and stacking heavy containers makes it a danger for the corporate. Moreover, the boring and repetitive nature of the duty means it is arduous 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 frequent pallet issues like loading inefficiency, misalignment, product harm, 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 splendid pallet conveyor requires a transparent understanding of your operational wants, future targets, and constraints that have an effect on the deployment.
Listed below are 10 steps that can assist you make clear which pallet conveyor will meet each your present and future imaginative and prescient to your finish of line:
Step 1: Determine on Automated or Handbook Palletizing
First, you could resolve 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 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 presents vital benefits, together with higher packing consistency, enhanced office security, and room for scalable progress. Robotic palletizing has turn into a robust strategic transfer for a lot of corporations 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 handbook course of. It is a key step within the Lean Robotics Framework that we all the time counsel earlier than folks add new know-how.
Robotiq’s Utility Knowledgeable 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 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 the whole course of and word which duties have been value-added and which have 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 have a look at how your palletizing cell suits within the general circulate of your total facility. Particularly, resolve if you’re utilizing centralized or decentralized palletizing.
Centralized palletizing entails gathering all product strains right into a single location. This may be an environment friendly strategy for high-volumes and may decrease the ground area required to your palletizing cell. Nonetheless, it’d require a extra complicated community of conveyors if in case you have a variety of product strains.
Decentralized palletizing deploys smaller, impartial palletizing stations for processing single or small numbers of product strains. This could enable for larger flexibility however might require a bigger funding upfront.
Step 4: Outline the Conveyor’s Function
To decide on the proper pallet conveyor, begin by defining its particular function. This ought to 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 may 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 toes 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 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 atmosphere 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 may have an effect on conveyor selection? For instance, are objects delicate, heavy, or require particular remedy.
The selections you make now will make it easier to slender down the choices.
Step 6: Choose the Appropriate Sort of Conveyor
Now, it is time to take a look at the various kinds of conveyor and examine them towards the wants of your utility.
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 sequence, these pull the load. They’re comparatively compact and work properly 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 gentle hundreds.
- 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 may optimize your cycle time and enhance effectivity, particularly with robotic palletizing.
Numerous structure elements 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 rather a lot. We are able to enhance the cycle time by merely transferring round some parts.”
Step 8: Calculate the Return on Funding (ROI)
Understanding the return on funding (ROI) and payback interval to your new conveyor system is important for making knowledgeable selections. 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 lets you get a quicker payback interval than merely buying a conveyor for handbook palletizing.
Our ROI calculator lets you get a transparent understanding of prices, financial savings, and timeframes so you may 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. Progress typically brings elevated throughput and new necessities to your finish of line processes.
Versatile options, similar to these constructed with modular elements, let you simply combine further 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: Spend money on 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 proper automation resolution.
Investing in palletizing automation would not must be a tricky choice. With the proper steerage and a transparent understanding of the probabilities, you may 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.
Must automate palletizing as properly?
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 will take your materials dealing with course of to the following stage!
What sort of conveyors have you ever tried? Inform us within the feedback under or be a part of the dialogue on LinkedIn or Fb.
