Take a look at your conveyor – do you think it’s safe? Are there sufficient guardrails? Are operators wearing loose clothing? Are visitors allowed near running lines? Because conveyor seems safe at a glance, it’s an often-overlooked hazard. Used correctly, of course, it is a safe way to increase productivity.

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The end of a manufacturing or distribution line is where the rubber meets the road for many operations. It’s potentially the last place where you have direct control of your product before it ships to retailers or direct customers. It’s where you can add a lot of value…or spoil a lot of value. The end of the line in many ways is more important to your company’s image as all its public relations, its websites, its brochures. It is often where your reputation can be made.

At the end of line, we package, we palletize, we stretch-wrap, we inspect, we ship. And we have the chance to add value.

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We’ve explained the advantages of 24-volt roller conveyor systems in the past, and wanted to get to you with this new product announcement from Hytrol: the Timing Belt Transfer. The E24™ powered timing belt strands and a pneumatic lift make this conveyor accessory powerful enough to sort up to 40 cartons per minute. The neoprene timing belts are coated with urethane to ensure positive grip when transferring the product. The drive sheaves come standard with ABEC-1 bearings, contributing to longer transfer life. The modular design of the transfer allows for simple system configurations.

Integrating an E24™ Transfer into your system is easy, as the standard configuration bolts into 3-inch roller centers in just minutes. For full bed width and extended configurations, an optional E24™ lineshaft kit is available so roll-to-roll o-rings are out of the way.

Conveyors, like any capital investment have multiple costs. The amount on your invoice is hardly the last time you’ll pay for that conveyor. If a conveyor is correctly specified and designed for future use, significant cost savings can be realized.

The three costs:

• Initial costs – the easiest to understand and quantify. This is the cost of equipment, installation, and controls.
• Operational costs – electrical usage  & pneumatics usage
• Maintenance costs – Spare parts, replacement parts, & labor costs

All of these costs are spread over the conveyor’s useful life, so a formula that might best express what your conveyor will cost is: TCO (total cost of ownership) = IC (initial cost) + OC (operational costs) + MC (maintenance costs)/ useful life of the system.

Higher initial costs may be recouped in lower maintenance and operational costs over time if the right decisions are made when the equipment is specified and ordered. The initial cost savings can be eaten up by higher operating and maintenance costs, but neither of those is as expensive as a system that cannot do the job it was deployed to do. Long term costs can easily outstrip the initial costs. What are the real, long term costs and what can you do to control them?

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Do your line employees help extend the life of your conveyors? If you don’t know the answer to that question, it’s probably “no.”

Employees are the first line of defense when it comes to minimizing maintenance problems, according to Cliff Holste at Supply Chain Digest. Are you adequately preparing them to fulfill that role? Are they trained, equipped, and encouraged to help you prevent issues with conveyors and other equipment? Past the jump, a couple of ways to help your line workers become more aware of ways to keep your systems running…

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When you are moving items such as cartons, bins, or components through a facility, several methods are available. Most of the time the choice is between non-powered carts & trucks or conveyors, whether power or gravity. (If you’re moving pallets, there are other methods and issues). Generally, conveyors deliver a less manual, safer operation with added efficiency across the board. Products are moved faster and fewer employees are required to accomplish the same tasks. Conveyors minimize fatigue and reduce potential manual lifting injuries. This improved handling has the potential to reduce worker compensation claims and expenses

But when do you make the leap from a manual, cart-driven system to a conveyor transport system?

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E24 Powered Roller Conveyor from Hytrol has become very popular with conveyor users due to its advantages over conventional conveyor and motorized rollers.  This quiet, energy-efficient conveyor fits the green mode that many operations are following, and can deliver exceptional flexibility, superb heat dissipation, and a robustness that cannot be achieved with motors embedded in conveyor rollers.

Below are two examples of  creative application of E24 technology…

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Environmental awareness, sustainability, ‘green’ or carbon foot printing, no matter what term you use today, everyone and every facility is aware that their processes need improving.

Whether you are in pharmaceutical, beverage, food, automotive, distribution, manufacturing or thousands of other industries today, there has to be some way to track and/or reuse what is not used within your daily operations. Many progressive industries are designing internal reclamation processes for utilization and recycling of goods they don’t need or are waste.

This white paper (PDF, opens a new window) explains various methods for removing refuse from your facility in a more organized, more controlled manner by utilizing conveyors.

Sustainability and economic considerations get along so well that you might as well call them best friends. Saving energy is one step in the process, but that’s not the end of it. For instance, Hytrol’s E24 and E24EZ conveyor lines are a good example. Aside from providing a much-needed alternative to convenitonal 24-volt conveyor rollers, these conveyors have immediate and significant sustainability advantages.

How green does conveyor get?

In the case of E24, we’re talking about energy savings as high as 60%.  But then we get into raw materials savings: An E24 conveyor lasts about 6 times as long as a conventional roller at 125,000 hours life expectancy (24/7 runtime). That’s less steel and power used to manufacture it. E24EZ conveyors have a built-in that allows the conveyors to enter an energy-saving “sleep mode” for the ultimate in quiet, efficient, sustainable powered roller conveyor. Because the conveyor can use only one motor for all widths, it’s excellent for reducing needs for specialized, energy-consuming motors. With 3 moving parts, there are many fewer opportunities for parts failure, and the inefficiency that comes with it.

We’ve been posting a series of brief conveyor white papers. There are 5 now, with many others in development for future publication. You’ll always be able to download these PDF files from our site, and will be informed as there are new ones.  This paper, “Conveyor System Implementation Considerations” (PDF file; opens in a new window) focuses on implementation considerations.

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