Conveyor Automation Crushes Cyber Week

… increasing E-comm shipments up to 650%

Multi-Conveyor recently installed a masterful new conveyor system for a globally operated mail-order footwear giant headquartered in Glendale, WI.  The goal? Crushing cyber week.

The 1.2 million square foot facility moves individual “pairs” of six major shoe brands over 13.5 miles of overall conveyance, from pick to ship. Multi-Conveyor was the first OEM supplier to install automated conveyor systems within their production floor that incline; overhead transport; decline; 180° curve; accumulate; justify; divert and reject.

The initial conveyor accepts manually loaded, filled and sealed assorted size shoe boxes (aka “pairs”), placed narrow or wide edge leading by dimension. The single lane product initially conveys on straight running plastic belt, scaling along the building wall, then overhead inclines on friction top belting, opening up headroom for production floor work space below.

The pairs take a controlled 30’ decline before entering a 180° curve around the wall opening using side flexing chain to stabilize the pairs during the turning process. Pairs then end transfer through another series of sensor-monitored product to maximum accumulation capacity.

Multi-Conveyor’s design engineers built-in an intermediate section of ARB (activated roller belt) to left-justify and gap the pairs with complete accuracy and positioning, precisely timed to feed a new shrink wrapper.

The newly wrapped single lane product discharges at a rate of 40 pairs per minute (PPM) onto an ARB conveyor with 1:2 divert capability. This system will, again, left-justify and feed two separate lanes of 20 PPM labelers ahead as controlled by the line operators.

Multi-Conveyor’s electrical engineering team stepped up and took the only onsite upfront technical support reins on calibrating the sensors, timing, controls and communications between OEM equipment.

Friction top belting was replaced in the labeler section, giving the pairs additional grip needed for the label application. That stability created way for an additional discount label application to take place that was previously applied manually.

Post-labelers, Multi-Conveyor added pneumatic actuated reject devices that work in tandem with the customer’s intricate PLC label verification scanning system.

By installing a new conveyor system, shrink wrapper and labelers, the company increased output from 6 PPM to 40 PPM, a 556% increase in output. However, the conveyors were spec’d up to 45 PPM, building in a total 650% eligible increase in future growth.

The company’s CIO sums up the experience, “We’ve had zero downtime with regard to the conveyors, motors and everything. Just from a serviceability standpoint it’s been fantastic. It’s been a really good partnership (with Multi-Conveyor) that we want to continue over the next, many years.”