Automated conveyors and AS/RS implementations can increase the performance of your warehouse, improve warehouse safety and significantly reduce labor expenses.

Conveyor systems can transport everything from lightweight cartons to heavy pallets within your material handling system and they are a fundamental component of contemporary material handling design.

Conveyors are classified in three separate divisions for almost all material handling operations:

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

Powered Package Handling Roller or Belt Conveyors

Powered roller or belt conveyor systems are often used for smaller items like cartons and packages.

Belts are mostly used for advancing packages along a line, while rollers are used for accumulating packages in certain areas along the line.

Belt Conveyors

Used since the beginning of the 20th Century, belt systems are an indispensable piece of most material handling operations. Lower cost than roller systems and often better suited to specific functions like advancing lightweight items, belt systems are used in many material handling configurations.

Belt conveyors utilize a long, looped belt that rides a metal slider belt substructure or an array of non-powered rollers. A motor drives a pulley that turns the belt and advances products down the conveyor line.

Conveyor belts can be configured with a variety of materials and surfaces in accordance with the function and role of the conveyor. For instance, a conveyor belt surface could be totally flat in segments where products need to be pushed off the line and may have a gripping surface on segments where products must be transported up inclines.

Roller Conveyors

Despite the long and successful history of belt conveyors, newer roller systems offer a number of more useful benefits in many modern material handling applications.

Most importantly, roller configurations can enable collection of products on the line where belt systems can not. This is a critical contrast because there are countless scenarios where objects must slow down and accumulate in material handling applications. Accumulation is often necessary when objects must be temporarily halted before being forwarded to automated palletizers or sorters.

Many roller conveyors also have the capability to supervise items on the line and apply zero pressure accumulation, meaning none of the amassed objects directly touch as they decelerate and come to stop.

Roller designs are made up of numerous cylinder rollers that are generally set up in one of these ways:.

• Line-shaft conveyors: in a line shaft system, a long steel rod runs beneath the cylinders perpendicular to them and is attached to each roller with flexible O-rings. A motor rotates the shaft, and thereby rotates the rollers via the connected O-rings. Line-shaft systems are the least costly of all roller conveyers, but they may also need the most maintenance because the connections between the rollers and the shaft tend to need adjustment and occasionally break.
• Belt-driven roller conveyors: As the name suggests, these systems are driven by a belt mechanism that lies underneath the roller platform. A motor drives the belt, which advances the cylinders.
• MDR conveyors: Motorized roller conveyors, frequently called motor-driven roller (MDR) conveyors, are built in sections where one roller from each section is driven by it's own motor. That solitary powered roller is joined to the others in that segment via rubber O-rings, and consequently drives all the rollers in the section. Powered units are placed in sequence to configure the conveyor line.
  Motorized roller conveyors are known for their energy efficiency because: a.) they usually run on 24 volt DC motors and b.) the electric motors can be set up to engage only when an object is detected on the rollers, meaning they are inactive much of the time.
  Although the cost of MDR conveyors is higher than line-shaft and belt drive systems, power costs and service outlays are generally far lower than the other types of conveyors.
• Segmented belt conveyor: the principle of motor driven roller systems eventually inspired the development of segmented belt conveyors. Similar to motor driven roller systems, segmented belts operate independently and offer a lot of the same advantages of MDRs, including accumulation potential.

Powered Pallet Handling Conveyors

Powered pallet-handling conveyors are frequently paired with palletizers and automatic storage and retrieval systems. Pallet handling conveyors can generally handle loads of up to 2 tons and proceed at a much slower rate than carton handling conveyors, many times at speeds as low as four pallets per minute.

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

• Pallet-handling chain conveyor: perhaps the most rudimentary of all conveyor methods, pallets on a chain conveyor line are positioned directly on two or more lengths of heavy duty chain. Motors propel the chain segments which in turn move the pallets down the line.
• Pallet-handling roller conveyor: similar in concept to MDR systems, pallet handling roller conveyors use larger rollers and sturdy chains to connect the motorized roller to the remaining cylinders in a conveyor segment.

Non-Powered Conveyors

Skatewheel or roller systems are the most common types of non-powered conveyors used in typical warehouse operations. These types of systems use inertia and gravity to move smaller products though pick modules, warehouses, workstations, automated sorters, loading docks and package sorting areas.

Skatewheel conveyors are comprised of many individual wheels and need minimal power to sustain the inertia of objects as they advance along a conveyor line. In general, they advance objects faster than non-powered roller configurations and they have more versatility when it comes to setup. Given that they're standalone wheels in contrast to a belt, they are often applied in curvilinear segments of a conveyor system.

Generally non-powered roller systems are not as expensive as skatewheel conveyor systems. They're often utilized for pick modules, workstations, and other sectors where it's beneficial to maintain a flat platform to perform tasks. Roller systems are also used to slow products down that originate from faster moving systems like sorters so that employees can keep pace with system output.

Non-powered skatewheel and roller conveyors have a distinct liability in comparison to powered systems: by employing inertia and gravity to move products you lose the ability to control the force applied to those items. Simply put, you have minimal control of the inertia and speed of materials on your line.

Conveyor System Engineering In Santa Clarita

If you 'd like a full analysis of conveyor system options for your storage facility, DC or other material handling operation, you can speak with an expert at Raymond West by calling 661-206-046

28303 Industry Dr.
Valencia, California 91355
Phone: 661-206-0462