Conveyor
Conveyor systems allow quick and efficient transportation for a wide variety of materials and are used where companies are looking to increase speed and reduce labor expenses in facilities where travel time is significant.
Many kinds of conveyor systems are available and are used according to the various needs of different industries. These uses range from non-powered, gravity or manually driven roller conveyors for cartons or totes to automated, fully-powered belted conveyors for transporting individual units such as polybags. More customized, overhead solutions are also available for conveying discarded cartons to trash compactors or totes to picking stations throughout a facility.
Specialty conveyors can also be used to load or unload trucks that have docked at your facility. Nested, pitched, skate-wheel conveyor is a relatively simple solution that relies on gravity to move cartons from the nose of a truck down to the dock where it can be palletized by a warehouse employee or forward to another conveyor. On the other end of the pricing and complexity spectrum, the fully automated version of this process is a powered, cantilevered, extendible belt conveyor which features an arm that can be retracted or extended into a truck and sequential belts that automatically transport a carton to your existing conveyor system. Like all conveyor components, each product has its own specific advantages and applications.
Conveyor systems can be expensive, but worthwhile investments if they are designed efficiently and appropriately for a given application. Because there is such a wide breadth of conveyor types and options, it behooves facility managers to hire firms such as Headzup, who have years of expertise in material handling, to consult on overall system design and conveyor selection to ensure that the maximum ROI is achieved.