A well ordered sortation system cuts down the man hours needed to palletise, pack and ship products. The right system lowers operating costs, minimises returns and boosts order fill rates, which in turn gives customers a faster delivery at a cheaper price. To continue to be successful though, in today’s harsh warehousing environments, conveyor suppliers must continue to innovate – allowing the equipment operators to work smarter, not harder. It is not unusual to add flow control to a conveyor. Companies want confidence that their product is being handled with care and precision – damaged goods are no good to them or the end customer. Using optical electronic flow control, conveyors can transport delicate shipments around warehouses in the knowledge they will be kept in a separated, organised, and efficient flow. This automation can take many forms, precisely tailoring the controls to meet the demands of any material handling situation.

This article was first published in the August 15th 2021 issue of Warehouse & Logistics News, subscribe to the magazine by clicking here.


It is encouraging to hear Mike Hilton, Sales Director at LAC, describe being Exotec’s exclusive integrator for the UK and Ireland as a “great coup” for the company. It enables LAC to offer a scalable robotic solution, thereby benefiting nascent ‘.com’ businesses, which can start with a low investment Exotec solution that can then grow in line with the future demands of their business. It is totally scalable and additional capacity can be added without major disruption to a live operational site.

Well done to Interroll, whose new Smart Pallet Mover (SPM) can be used manually to programme how the flow works. The system is very flexible, offering manual, semi-automatic and fully automatic modes. Eventually users will be able to configure the system, get a cost and then purchase all in one go online.

Congratulations to Vanderlande, which has partnered with logistic service provider Bleckmann to test one of its latest warehousing innovations, which aims to improve the manual sortation of batch-picked items to orders. The intuitive system can also reduce training time and increase operator performance. At the manual sortation area, a light pointer mounted on the ceiling highlights the desired location slot in the putwall. The operator then places the item at the right location and the 3D camera on top of the putwall confirms the ‘put action’.

FMH provides Flexible Conveyors in all shapes and sizes. With virtually infinite options for width, pitch, length, and height, the conveyor can be whatever the operation needs – whenever it needs it. There are two distinct variants of the Flexible catalogue though, Powered or Gravity.

It is uplifting to see conveying and sortation suppliers innovating to help warehouses satisfy the high standards of the 21st century consumer.

George Simpson

Features Editor

 

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