Essential Guide When Customising Conveyor System Designs for Your Business

Innovative product conveyance solutions don’t spring up overnight. Before any other action takes place, engineering experts walk the floors of your business. They’re there to assess the processing environment. A customised conveyor system rises to accommodate the unique design solution. It is modular, built from plastic or metal, and powered by a capable drive mechanism. Let’s rewind a little and use this guide to understand these engineering procedures.

Designing Made-to-Order Conveyor Systems

What factors top the agenda when an engineering team is tasked with this project? Well, we need to know the type of product that the business processes. For example, food-safe metals are required if the facility is working with perishable meat. Hygiene is of paramount importance in this case, so a stainless steel belt system is a logical solution. Easy to wash and safe to carry consumable items, that polished metal belt is typically fabricated from segmented stainless steel or aluminium. Alternatively, an Ultra-High Molecular Weight polyethylene system will serve the same role. In addition to its food-safe features, this plastic washes readily and incorporates a chlorine-resistant base, so the plastic won’t react adversely if a harsh cleaning agent is used in a jet pressurised cleaning solution.

Conveyor Customisation: Essential Considerations

Just from reading the above example, you begin to realise how important this design stage really is during your business-centric conversion procedure. The food sector uses safe plastics and stainless metals. Furthermore, uniquely profiled design elements are often added to the belt materials. Picture customised frame cutouts in the conveyor. They’re there to hasten water drainage during the cleaning operation. That’s all well and good, but what if the mechanically carried items are fragile? Packaging boxes represent a fine example of this design obligation. In this particular processing application, the drive system uses a reduction gearing assembly to slow the velocity of the conveyor belt. Perhaps the rollers and pulleys even adopt a multi-velocity build, with a single segment of the line putting on the brakes. Slowed in this manner, an assembly team receives a small window of opportunity so that they can carry out their parts-assembling duties.

When the engineering team evaluates the processing environment, changes are coming. A switch to a food-safe design means adding acid-resistant plastics and stainless steel alloys. Fragile products receive extra attention during this tailoring stage, so expect banks of rubber bumpers along the conveyor line. Meanwhile, spiral modules are installed elsewhere, perhaps as a space-saving measure, while drop-lift sections and inclined stretches, bridge the gap between the system assemblages that are installed at different heights.