12 Live Drum Spiral Conveyors Solve for High Volume Palletizing Operations
December 18, 2012
Two mega consumer goods production facilities purchased 12 Live Drum Spiral Conveyors in the past year to increase volume to palletizing operations. Each facility maximized its six lines by adding Live Drum Spiral Conveyors to handle any of five different sizes of cases from the warehouse to the palletizers. The manufacturer considered the rates and capability of handling 30 lb. cases, the low maintenance benefits and the versatility to handle different sizes without change-over procedures in making the equipment decision.
A critical objective for the palletizing operations was to increase OEE (overall equipment efficiency) and overall line efficiency. At 70 FPM and a rate of 25 -35 cases per minute, the Live Drum Spiral Conveyor s maintained steady flow of cases to the palletizers.
The Live Drum Spiral Conveyor easily handles the product load with cases ranging in weight from 25 – 30 lbs. Regardless of the conveyor length, the rotating stainless steel drum imparts the driving force to the inside edge of the belt creating very low tension on the belt. The low-tension principle of the Live Drum has allowed Nercon to engineer load capacities up to 25 - 30 lbs. per linear foot of chain.
A driving decision criteria by the customer’s plant and technical personnel, was the low-tension benefits of the Live-Drum Spiral Conveyor. Competing high tension spirals have multiple drives, motors, bearings, rollers and hundreds of moving parts to maintain. The continual low tension operation of the Drum Spiral results in longer life of the two drives, belt and other components in the system, resulting in reduced maintenance compared to conventional elevating/lowering methods.
Finally, these manufacturers were compelled to favor the Live Drum Spiral conveyor for its versatility in handling many sizes of cases. Currently the line produces five different case sizes for palletizing, but the Live Drum Spiral Conveyor has the capacity to handle additional sizes. Just about any future case size that fits within the flights and travels through the radius turns can be conveyed on this equipment. The slight elevation change combined with the wide radius turns allow for a wide range of product types and sizes to travel smoothly on this equipment in either elevating or lowering modes.
The reduced maintenance and downtime combined with the increased production capacity provided the OEE targets the companies looked to achieve.
In the past four years, Nercon has manufactured over 30 Live Drum Spiral Conveyors to handle glass jars, cans, unpackaged pasta, PET tubs, container lids, household detergent, pouches, bags, paper plates and cartons.
For a product catalog and videos on Nercon’s Live Drum Spiral Conveyor, click below:
