Conveyor systems design requires experience and a high degree of application knowledge in order to select the right conveyors to be used in a material handling system. Conveyors are commonly used to facilitate most of the operations associated within manufacturing, distribution and warehousing facilities.
As an example, in a manufacturing environment, conveyors are used to transport a product that has been manufactured to a packing operation where it will then be placed inside a case. Cases are then transported via conveyor to a palletizing operation which, in turn, will convey pallets to a warehouse drop off point for storage put-away. In this example, there would have been three different categories of conveyor; one capable of handling a singe piece, another to transport cases and a third capable of conveying a pallet. All of these conveyors have different design criteria and specifications. In addition, the conveyors would need to be designed to facilitate other operations that take place while the product is being conveyed such as weighing, scanning, metal detection, labeling and a host of other tasks.
Conveyor systems in all warehouse and distribution environments are required to transport product between successive steps in the order fulfillment process. Additionally, these conveyor systems should provide accumulation buffers throughout the process to allow for workflow balancing when considering the different processing rates associated with each step in the process. You will find conveyors used in receiving, put away, order picking, packaging, quality control, returned goods, sortation and shipping operations.
There are several steps that should be followed in order to have automated conveyor systems that meet your operational needs that exist now or are planned for the future. Engineering a conveyor system requires that you know the product being conveyed, know the rates required to meet operational goals, have conveyor application experience, and a thorough knowledge of gravity, live roller and belt conveyor design so that the system functions as intended.
For additional information on Conveyor System Design and other material handling issues TriFactor’s Craig Bertorello has written a white paper titled “Guidelines for Choosing a Conveyor System” that is available in the TriFactor Learning Center Material Handling White Papers section.
TriFactor offers facility design layout services for those companies in the planning stages for the construction of a new storage facility or the reconfiguration of their existing operations. Regardless of the material handling situation, TriFactor has developed a solution process over the past 20 years which is now called the TriFactor Edge. If you’re looking for an Edge on your competition, call TriFactor today at 1-800-507-4209 to get us started solving your warehouse and distribution center needs.
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