Can E-Commerce Conveyor Systems Be Flexible and Adaptive?

Whether you’re a manufacturer, packager, or fulfilment center, the impact of the pandemic on e-commerce and supply chains has affected how you use your conveyor system. Throughput and process updates for transfer conveyor operation have had to change, as have overall material handling conveyor systems. It is the throughput routing changes and product size variability that are have the most impact. This is true for fulfillment center conveyor systems and other manufacturer conveyor systems within the broader e-commerce supply chain.

Speed, or throughput of products and packages that require diversion based on a wide variety of criteria can put a great deal of pressure on material handling conveyor systems. Many of these legacy conveyors have already reached their maximum design variability options without incurring significant costs for conveyor redesigns.

Transfer needs in manufacturing and e-commerce fulfillment vary among fulfillment and packaging manufacturers, which can require innovative solutions. Automation modifications only help so much without the flexibility of modular designs that can provide greater transfer conveyor configurability. This includes the abilities to elevate, descend, retract, and extend in addition to diversion in key places within the conveyor system.

Product and material handling call for highly configurable equipment as no two applications are the same. Conveyor system manufacturers ideally design, engineer, and implement customer solutions that provide some level of easy reconfiguration. But the variable packaging customization requirements for each e-commerce manufacturing or fulfillment environment brings specialized needs.

Modern automated packing machines have developed to meet that variable need. These machines become the core of material handling conveyor systems for e-commerce fulfillment and much broader customized manufacturing environments.

Today’s high speed and high throughput production conveyor systems will include transportation and accumulation functionality at different conveyor system points. These points may be subject to change for e-commerce manufacturing and fulfillment companies based on market and product changes. Although they may not be abrupt changes, they often require that these functionalities (feeding, packing, packaging, sealing, and tray forming machines) provide some level of adjustability to meet those changes.

Modular and adaptable conveyor components are among the most versatile, efficient and cost-effective ways to merge these machines into a unified, customized and optimized conveyor system. That’s why the transfer conveyor plays a vital role in facilitating changing or more complex diversions such as 90-degree right or left, up or down, merging, switching or accumulation.

Cost is always a factor with changes, especially in legacy systems, so manufacturers must think long-term when designing new systems or for integrating system updates with legacy material handling conveyor systems. Downtime for replacement of sections is a major consideration, so modularity is an important design characteristic that enables manufacturers to implement transfer conveyor sections.

Modular conveyors with specialized transfer components working in tandem with the latest packaging and sorting machine make modern e-commerce fulfilment possible. The ability to design conveyor systems that are based on parts standardization and highly variable customization is the key. To learn how Conovey can provide custom solutions for everything from production to packaging as part of e-commerce fulfilment, follow our SpanTech Conveyor Link.