Conveyor Applications

Upgrading and Improving
The manual system was first set up with the order pickers, taking carts along two rows of flow racking selecting items for each individual order. After the orders were filled and the carts were full, they were wheeled down to a table of packers that stuffed them into envelopes for mailing. As a result of the location of the Gaylord boxes, the packers were required to twist and turn to place the envelopes in the Gaylord boxes to be sent to the post office.

Babush designed a system that starts with a 65’ slider bed belt conveyor. After filling individual orders, the order pickers place them on the conveyor along with the packing slip. The orders follow along the conveyor and turn 90 degrees on a belted curve conveyor and then transfer onto another 10’ slider bed belt conveyor, where they are inspected by quality control. To eliminate possible jamming and product damage, Babush modified and powered the transfer rollers for a smooth transfer. This has proven to be very valuable, as it allows the DVD and VHS movies to move through the system with ease and keeps orders together on the line. The orders continue onto a 30’ slider bed belt conveyor with 10” wide model frames mounted along the side creating a work table, with a 12” gap between frames, for the packers to take the orders off the belt conveyor and place into envelopes. The packers then let the envelopes drop into the gap and onto chutes attached to the bottoms of the work benches. This allows the envelopes to fall onto a belted infeed conveyor running along the floor that feeds a 14’10” incline belt conveyor, which takes the envelopes and drops them into a Gaylord box for shipment. Orders are filled by postal zones that have been established by the postal service. Upon completion of the orders for a specific zone; the Gaylord is removed and replaced with an empty Gaylord for the next batch of orders.
Controls used in this process were individual starters with pushbutton start/stop stations on each conveyor. There is a variable speed controller on the packing conveyor to increase or decrease the speed, depending on how many packers are present. In addition, there are E-stop pull cords that run the full length of the conveyor system on both sides.

Benefits When Alta Resources, Inc. started this project the movie club had 79,000 members and they were filling 2,500 orders a day. They now have over 500,000 members and do 14,000 orders per day in the same facility.