MHW Magazine News and stories from the Materials Handling Industry
Often used and associated with vehicle loading / unloading, Best PowerFlex powered roller mobile conveyors have been incorporated into a system to improve the movement of rigid presentation packaging during packaging collation at a production plant.
The conveyors were installed at a leading manufacturer of rigid packaging in order to improve the flow of products in the form of box lids and bases from a pair of folding and gluing machines, feeding to a central finishing and collation table. Lid and tray components are produced on separate machines.
The low discharge height of the box making machines was too low to achieve ergonomically-correct working heights and therefore, required the conveying system to incline upwards so that products could be elevated up to the correct work station height. This meant that a gravity conveyor would be ineffective and also due to the layout of the facility, the conveyors had to bring the product through a tight 90° angle to meet the workstation.
Therefore, the flexible and expandable Best PowerFlex was the ideal powered roller conveyor solution to transport the bases and lids upwards from the machine to the collation table The adjustable legs of the flexible conveyor enabled the exact gradient to be achieved throughout the bend from both machines. The self-tracking ability of PowerFlex means the lightweight carton sections are conveyed around the bend without the need for additional guarding, guide rails or rubber coated rollers.
Various other factors pointed towards PowerFlex as being the overall best option. For instance, due to a mixture of product specifications, sometimes it was necessary to add a further workstation along one of the conveyors. The inherent flexibility of the PowerFlex means that not only could this be accommodated, but also the absence of side rails, coupled with the superior tracking ability, allowed easy access from any point along the conveyor.
Also, at the time of installation the company had plans for relocating machinery. The PowerFlex roller conveyor comes with robust 150mm castors as standard and therefore could be easily repositioned.
The Best PowerFlex has also allowed the manufacturer greater flexibility for central packing station positioning, improved floor utilisation, and maintenance reductions due to multi-tasking of single PowerFlex conveyors to do jobs which would otherwise need a number of separate conveyors.
Contact for further details covering Best PowerFlex or visit www.bestconveyors.co.uk.
Tel: +44 (0) 1536 206969
e-mail: info@bestconveyors.co.uk
Website:www.bestconveyors.co.uk.
