Pallet conveyors are a fundamental component in material handling and end of line operations. Choosing the right conveyor can have a direct impact on shipping times, facility layout, and overall productivity.
The right pallet conveyor can reduce wasteful manual labor steps, optimize your space, and even open the doors to automated palletizing solutions. However, the wrong choice could lead to higher costs, wasteful inefficiencies, and inventory bottlenecks .
To help you avoid these pitfalls, this guide walks you through the 10 essential steps for picking the right conveyor for your palletizing.
Selecting the right conveyor is more than just a practical purchasing decision. It can be a strategic move to enhance your material handling process.
If you are using manual palletizing — where workers stack pallets with products — the right conveyor can help to reduce dangerous ergonomic issues that can lead to physical injury and even impact employee mental health.
Ryan Weaver, VP of Commercial at Robotiq, explains:
"Palletizing is one of the most labor-intensive tasks in the production and shipping process. The high risk of injury from repeatedly picking and stacking heavy boxes makes it a risk for the company. Additionally, the dull and repetitive nature of the task means it's hard to find and retain workers willing to do the job."
If you are using automated palletizing, there are many extra benefits. The right conveyor can help to optimize your automated process to create a seamless, efficient workflow. When combined with robotic palletizing, the conveyor forms a system that helps reduce common pallet problems like loading inefficiency, misalignment, product damage, and inconsistent pallet quality.
Whether you are using manual or automated palletizing, the conveyor lays the groundwork for an efficient and scalable palletizing process.
Choosing your ideal pallet conveyor requires a clear understanding of your operational needs, future goals, and constraints that affect the deployment.
Here are 10 steps to help you clarify which pallet conveyor will meet both your current and future vision for your end of line:
First, you must decide if you will use a manual palletizing process or an automated one. This can radically affect the choice of conveyor. If you haven't considered automating your palletizing process before, now is a good time to think about it.
Manual palletizing is a viable option for small-scale operations with infrequent packaging demands or budget constraints. In this case, you will look for conveyors that enhance manual palletizing.
Automated palletizing offers significant advantages, including better packing consistency, enhanced workplace safety, and room for scalable growth. Robotic palletizing has become a strong strategic move for many companies in the last 5 years.
Before selecting a conveyor, take time to map out your current manual process. This is a key step in the Lean Robotics Framework that we always suggest before people add new technology.
Robotiq's Application Expert Marc-Antoine Lacasse explains the importance of this step in our free palletizing eLearning course:
"Manual task mapping is the first step to really understand the application well. Ask questions like: What is the next step in the production line? How does the pallet leave the cell? Take the time to complete the entire process and note which tasks were value-added and which were downtimes."
To help with this, download our free manual task map template.
You should then take a step back and look at how your palletizing cell fits in the overall flow of your entire facility. Specifically, decide if you are using centralized or decentralized palletizing.
Centralized palletizing involves gathering all product lines into a single location. This can be an efficient approach for high-volumes and can minimize the floor space required for your palletizing cell. However, it might require a more complex network of conveyors if you have a lot of product lines.
Decentralized palletizing deploys smaller, independent palletizing stations for processing single or small numbers of product lines. This can allow for greater flexibility but may require a larger investment upfront.
To choose the right pallet conveyor, start by defining its specific purpose. This should be fairly straightforward after going through the previous steps.
Ask questions like:
Each pallet type has unique characteristics that can affect your choice of conveyor. For example, pallets with formed feet can enhance the stability and longevity of storage, and are well suited to drag train conveyors.
There is a staggering number of conveyor types. Before even looking at the individual types, it's helpful to clarify exactly what operational properties you need from your conveyor.
For example:
The decisions you make now will help you narrow down the options.
Now, it's time to look at the different types of conveyor and compare them against the needs of your application.
Some of the many conveyor types include:
Your palletizing cell layout can have a tremendous impact on performance. By minimizing unnecessary movements, you can optimize your cycle time and improve efficiency, especially with robotic palletizing.
Various layout factors can affect the cycle time, including distances between elements, the height of the conveyor, and dimensions of the pallets.
Robotiq Applications Engineer Gabriel Boucher explains:
"The layout of a palletizing cell is typically fairly simple. However, some small changes will affect the performance of the cell quite a lot. We can improve the cycle time by simply moving around some elements."
Understanding the return on investment (ROI) and payback period for your new conveyor system is essential for making informed decisions. By analyzing the long-term impact, it helps you justify the initial cost and also demonstrates the savings you can make.
Robotic palletizing often allows you to get a faster payback period than simply purchasing a conveyor for manual palletizing.
Our ROI calculator allows you to get a clear understanding of costs, savings, and timeframes so you can work out how quickly your investment will pay off.
Purchasing a pallet conveyor shouldn't just be a "quick fix." When selecting a conveyor, think about how you would like to scale your palletizing operations in the future. Growth often brings increased throughput and new requirements for your end of line processes.
Flexible solutions, such as those built with modular components, allow you to easily integrate extra elements to your palletizing cell to cope with such changes. This flexibility is why so many companies are turning to collaborative robot palletizing. The inherent flexibility of such robotic solutions makes it easy to scale and optimize palletizing long into the future.
If you are considering automating your palletizing as well as adding a new conveyor, it is important to choose the right automation solution.
Investing in palletizing automation doesn't need to be a tough decision. With the right guidance and a clear understanding of the possibilities, you can ensure seamless integration that addresses both your immediate needs and future scalability.
Read our The Automated Palletizing Buyer’s Guide to get a simple, action-oriented guide through this process.
At Robotiq, we help manufacturers with automated palletizing solutions that combine the speed, flexibility, and precision of robotics with easy-to-use software.
Whatever your current palletizing needs, our range of palletizing solutions not only enhances productivity but also builds adaptability into your operations, enabling you to stay competitive in today's changing markets.
Contact us today to discuss your palletizing ideas and find out how we can take your material handling process to the next level!
What type of conveyors have you tried? Tell us in the comments below or join the discussion on LinkedIn or Facebook.