Manufacturing Companies trying to increase their productivity and stay competitive in the marketplace have many options available to do so. In almost all circumstances it comes down to either lowering costs for raw materials and labor used to produce a product or to increase the workflow which is the total time it takes to manufacture a product. This workflow time must also consider the material flow from goods inwards to dispatch. This is an area in which belt conveyors can make a significant difference in productivity at a low level of investment. If it can be identified that staff constantly run back and forth to retrieve certain goods then a reduction in labor costs is easily achievable in implementing a belt conveyor and run the material workflow more efficiently and thus increase productivity. Often, a strategically placed belt conveyor can have  a huge impact on workflow efficiency and most likely the investment costs will be very low.

It is very important to customize these conveyors to exactly match the workflow times needed in any given manufacturing situation. An “off the shelf” conveyor system will most likely cause more problems rather than increasing efficiency. It is imperative that the conveyor system is built to take all variables into consideration. Some of those might be peak and off peak cycle times, size and weight of products to be transported, material of goods or if the system needs to be able to run in accumulation or start/stop mode.

Another very important key aspect to consider is to make sure that an even workflow is achieved throughout the entire process. If one process is running faster then another then bottlenecks are created which diminish the efficiency and mostly achieve nothing else but to move a problem from one area within the manufacturing facility to another. This is where the entire workflow process has to be taken into consideration, from goods inwards through manufacturing to dispatch. This seems quite simple but when looking closely can become quite complex.  There are companies that are specialized in working out optimized workflows but for small to medium sized companies a conveyor manufacturer should have a good understanding of what is required and should be able to give some good common sense advice.

Looking at all these variables should make it very clear that belt conveyor systems must be custom designed and built to match the manufacturing environment. Saving a few investment dollars at this stage may turn out to be an expensive mistake.