Savannah Conveyor Systems

AS/RS systems and conveyors can elevate the efficiency of your warehouse, improve warehouse safety and significantly reduce employee costs.

Conveyor systems can move both individual cartons and entire pallets within your material handling system, and they are an essential part of modern material handling design.

Conveyor systems are classified in three separate categories for almost all material handling systems:

• Powered belt or roller conveyor systems (for carton handling)
• Powered roller or chain conveyors (for pallet handling)
• Non-powered conveyors

Powered Package Handling Roller or Belt Conveyors

Powered belt or roller conveyor systems are frequently used for less bulky pieces like cartons and packages.

Belt systems are mostly used for moving products along a line, while rollers are used for accumulating cartons in certain areas along the line.

Belt Conveyors

Invented more than a century ago, belt systems are a fundamental part of most material handling systems. Less expensive than roller options and frequently better suited to specific functions like transporting lightweight items, belt systems are used in many material handling designs.

Belt systems utilize a long, looped belt that is positioned on the top of a series of non-powered rollers on a metal substructure called a slider belt. A motor drives a pulley that turns the belt and advances items down the conveyor line.

Belt systems can be configured with a range of surfaces and materials according to the function and nature of the conveyor. To illustrate, a belt surface may be un-ridged in segments where items need to glide off the line and may have a gripping texture on segments where products have to be advanced up inclines.

Roller Conveyors

While belt conveyors still have a place in most operations, newer roller systems feature a host of more useful benefits in many modern material handling uses.

Principal among these, roller conveyors can enable collection of items on the line where belt systems cannot. This is an important contrast because there are endless scenarios where items must decelerate and accumulate in material handling applications. Accumulation is often necessary when objects must be temporarily halted before being passed to automated palletizers or sorters.

Advanced roller conveyor systems also have the capability to track items on the line and apply zero pressure accumulation, meaning none of the accumulating objects come into contact as they slow down and come to a stop.

Roller systems are made up of numerous cylinder rollers that are typically controlled in one of three different ways:

• Line shaft conveyors: In a line shaft conveyor, a long metal rod runs beneath the rollers perpendicular to them and is attached to each roller with rubber O-rings. A motor rotates the shaft and thereby rotates the rollers by way of the attached O-rings. Line shaft configurations are the least costly of all roller conveyors, but they can also demand the most service because the connections between the shaft and rollers need frequent readjustment and sometimes break.
• Belt-driven roller conveyors: As you may expect, these systems are powered by a belt mechanism that lies underneath the roller platform. A motor propels the belt, which propels the cylinders.
• MDR conveyors: Motorized roller conveyors, sometimes called motor-driven roller (MDR) systems, are built in sections where a single roller from each segment is propelled by its own drive mechanism. That one powered roller is connected to the others in that section via rubber O-rings, thereby driving all the cylinders in the section. MDR segments are positioned in sequence to configure the conveyor line.
  Motorized roller conveyors are known for their energy efficiency because: a.) They generally run on 24-volt direct current motors and b.) These electric motors can be set up to engage only when an object is present on the rollers, meaning they are inactive most of the time.
  Although motorized roller conveyors cost more than belt drive and line shaft systems, electricity costs and maintenance outlays are typically quite a bit lower than the other types of conveyors.
• Segmented belt conveyor: The principle of motor-driven roller conveyors ultimately led to the idea of segmented belt conveyors. Similar to motor-driven roller conveyors, segmented belts are powered independently and offer a lot of the same benefits of motor-driven rollers, including accumulation potential.

Powered Pallet Handling Conveyors

Powered pallet handling conveyors are many times coupled with AS/RS systems and automatic palletizers. Pallet handling conveyors can typically accommodate pallets of up to two tons and run at a much slower pace than package handling systems, many times at speeds of just a few pallets per minute.

Pallet handling conveyors come in two types: chain conveyors and roller conveyors.

• Pallet handling chain conveyor: Perhaps the most rudimentary of all conveyor methods, pallets on a chain conveyor line sit on top of segments of heavy-duty chain. A drive mechanism advances the chain segments which consequently advance the pallets down the line.
• Pallet handling roller conveyor: Analogous to MDR systems, pallet handling roller conveyors use large cylinders and heavy-duty chains to join the motorized roller to the remaining rollers in a conveyor unit.

Non-Powered Conveyors

Roller or skatewheel systems are the most common types of non-powered conveyors used in typical warehouse operations. These types of systems use gravity or inertia to advance smaller items through warehouses, pick modules, automated sorters, workstations, package-sorting areas and loading docks.

Skatewheel systems comprise numerous individual wheels and need minimal energy to sustain the inertia of items as they progress along a conveyor line. In general, they propel objects quicker than non-powered roller systems, and they have more versatility when it comes to configuration. Given that they’re individual wheels instead of a belt, they may be applied in curved segments of a conveyor arrangement.

Generally non-powered roller systems are less costly than skatewheel conveyor configurations. They are often used for workstations, pick modules and other areas where it’s beneficial to maintain a flat platform to perform tasks. Roller conveyors also slow products down that originate from higher speed mechanisms like sorters so that employees can keep up with conveyor output.

Non-powered systems have a distinct handicap as compared with powered conveyors: By applying gravity and inertia to move products, you lose the ability to regulate the force applied to those products. Simply put, you have very little influence on the inertia and speed of items on your line.

Conveyor Companies Near Me

If you’d like a complete evaluation of conveyor system possibilities for your storage facility, distribution center or other material handling operation, speak with an expert at Carolina Handling.