How can I improve my conveyor belt?

Perhaps more than any other piece of manufacturing and inventory management equipment, conveyor systems have the potential to make workers safer and more productive. When designed and operated efficiently, conveyors streamline the movement of finished products, components, packaging, and more. A conveyor belt malfunction, however, has the potential to throw production floors and warehouses into chaos; bottlenecking workflow, piling up material, damaging valuable inventory, and potentially endangering workers.

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All organizations strive to keep production humming along and create safe work environments. Ensuring optimal conveyor belt efficiency goes a long way toward achieving those goals. Stalled conveyor belt systems are costly and stressful, so it is vital to do whatever it takes to keep them moving.

Pre-production belt selection tips

Even before your plant goes into operation, considering various factors can positively influence your conveyor efficiency.

1. Consider the loads your belts are handling &#; The size, weight, dimensions, and other characteristics of the load your conveyor will be transporting will help determine the belt material, motor, drive, and hardware that is right for your application. Other product aspects such as temperature and material can also affect the selection. To start, learn about the differences between conventional belting and plastic modular belting. Overall, it is a good idea to review design options with a belt expert to consider all different belt options.
2. Set your conveyors to pull rather than push &#; Pulling is a lot more efficient than pushing. Your conveyor belt can lose up to 50-70% of its load capacity when pushing.
3. Consider the flow rate &#; How fast and how precisely you need materials to be fed or removed by the conveyor may require specific equipment. For instance, in the distribution and airport industries, a fast-moving conveyor belt is paramount. For fast moving belts, you will likely need fasteners, endless splicing equipment, segmented transfer plates, and maintenance tools.
4. Know the requirements of your industry &#; If you will be moving food and beverage products or pharmaceutical ingredients, then material density must be considered, along with hygienic and sanitation factors. In many cases, you will need an FDA approved conveyor belt.

During production conveyor belt selection tips

Taking the time to inspect your conveyor belts and perform preventative maintenance saves money in the long run and could prevent a major failure that spoils products, puts employees in danger, or causes downtime.

5. Make it routine &#; Follow the conveyor belt manufacturer&#;s recommendations for daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly inspection of bearings, pulleys, and other components. Insist that your maintenance team, whether internal or hired externally, record each inspection and the preventative actions taken.
6. Keep it clean &#; While this is critical for food, dairy, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical companies, all industries will see their conveyor belt efficiency rise through regular cleaning and lubrication. A cleaning regimen will reduce energy usage as well as friction and slippage that can drain the life from motors, rollers, and other moving parts. Depending on your business, investing in a clean-in-place system may be worthwhile.
7. Replace parts before they break &#; Predictive maintenance can not only help you avoid catastrophic breakdowns, but also maintain productivity. Bad parts are more likely to break, creating production binds. But they are also often responsible for less-than-optimal workflow that eats into revenue and profits. To practice predictive and preventative maintenance, we recommend having critical parts on hand, or at least having a conveyor belt supplier in your corner that can get you back up and running quickly.

Safety, training, and logistics tips

Conveyor systems are integral players in many production, distribution, and supply chain environments. But to reach a conveyor belts full productivity potential, organizations must ensure they are placed and used correctly.

8. Inspect and calibrate &#; When first setting up conveyors and at regular intervals during their operation, inspectors should ensure all safety mechanisms &#; pull stops, machine guards, housings, railings, warning labels, etc. &#; are in place and secure. Conveyors should be calibrated and adjusted to ensure they remain easy for workers to use and they meet standards. Vibrations, contact with people or handcarts, and other day-to-day working conditions can throw belts out of alignment or otherwise diminish their value.
9. Design safe and efficient workstations &#; If your conveyor is part of a workstation where workers pick, pack, assemble, or inspect items, then ergonomic conditions must be considered. Design the stations to help employees become more productive and at less risk of injuring themselves. The less time spent bending, reaching, and twisting, the better their performance. Design the conveyor height to suit your tallest operator. Provide platforms so shorter workers can be comfortable working there, as well. Make sure items they need to access are within easy reach.
10. Foster a culture of safety &#; Encourage your workers to report any safety concern they have and to make suggestions for making their conveyor work easier or more productive. Adopt a zero-tolerance policy for misusing conveyors, and make sure every employee knows how to stop the belt in an emergency.

Accurate Industrial can help with conveyor belt efficiency

Conveyor belt efficiency and longevity can only be achieved through proper planning and maintenance. Pre-production planning and regular maintenance can seem inconvenient, but in the long run, it will ultimately help prevent halts and downtime in the production process, which translates to higher profits and less wasted time. 

Accurate Industrial is committed to helping you make your conveying systems reliable, durable, and efficient. We are extremely passionate about this industry, and all our products and services are led by innovation, quality, and expertise. We continuously rise to solve the toughest production challenges and are available 24/7 to help you from start to finish with all your conveyor belt needs. Contact us today or call (800) 684- to learn more about how to choose, set up, and operate the right conveyor belt system to make your facility the most efficient and productive it can be.

Posted on 8/17/

A lot of time and planning goes into creating a production line. And installing a production line, big or small, costs money. Your customers depend on your production line running smoothly, and so do your employees. So it's critical to ensure your conveyor line is running as efficiently as possible.

The Reality of Conveyor Downtime

Conveyor downtime is one of the biggest costs to production efficiency in the manufacturing process. Being a system that can be fully automated, without the need for human assistance, it is possible for conveyors to run 24/7, producing and packaging products all day and night. Unfortunately for many companies, this simply isn&#;t happening, and it's costing them precious time.

7 Ways to Improve Conveyor Efficiency in your Production Line

How can I decrease conveyor downtime?

1. Allow the conveyor to move as efficiently as possible

1. Conveyors are only meant to carry so much weight at any given moment. While some are capable of carrying lots of weight, pushing a conveyor to its limit will decrease its maximum speed and cause damage over a long amount of time. Even when conveying heavy products, making sure not to overdo, a single conveyor is important to ensure an efficient and healthy production line.

2. Keep the conveyor running at all times

1. This is the easiest way to decrease conveyor downtime, but it's important to not leave conveyors running for no purpose. As long as the conveyors are fulfilling their purpose they should be moving, however, and making sure that they&#;re always needed is important in making the manufacturing process and quick as possible.

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3. Make sure that all parts of the manufacturing process are running at equal paces

1. Often times in the manufacturing process, products will need to be delayed in order to allow other parts, such as packaging materials, to catch up to the rest of the production line. Reworking the existing conveyor systems to bring all of a product parts closer together in time can seriously reduce the need for any sort of delays and stall in a conveyor system.

4. Automate everything you can

1. Human assistance is often needed within the manufacturing process to ensure that everything that can run smoothly does run smoothly. Any abnormal products or production issues are able to be identified and dealt with by humans far quicker than any machines can. In some circumstances, though, humans might not be needed. When these cases arise, the short term cost of automating what they do will be more than paid for from long term production benefits.

5. Make sure that parts aren&#;t at a standstill or being accumulated unless they are on a conveyor whose function is to accumulate them

1. Similar to point number 2, making sure that parts aren&#;t just sitting around being dead weight is crucial. While there are many conveyor systems that are specially designed to help stall and accumulate products, this is often done for a specialized reason. Most of the time your products should be moving, moving, moving! In theory a perfectly efficient production line should never have to wait unless absolutely required. (Giving time for products to cool, settle, or be tested/inspected)

6. Have multiple conveyor systems running at a single time to improve efficiency and to lighten the workload on each one. 

1. When you have so many products that need to be moved, a single conveyor might get overworked, slowed down, or require special filtering systems to help ensure the safe travel of products. Overloading a conveyor may also result in production issues that can serious affect the bottom line of a production process. Implementing multiple conveyors that do the same job will help reduce the workload of each one, allowing them to run at their maximum capacity while still keeping up with efficiency.

7. Do inspections and repairs on conveyors regularly

1. Over time, the motors and belts of conveyors will inevitably wear down. As the wear and tear adds up, conveyors begin to move slower and slower, while taking up more power to do so. Checking up on conveyor systems BEFORE they break is an important process to ensure that you can get ahead of any problems before they occur. Having a solid routine maintenance plan in place is key. 

Do you have questions about this blog post or conveyors? Then fill out the form below and we'll be happy to get back to you.

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