The conveyors keep rolling along

While mate­r­i­al han­dling robots can be used to posi­tion and trans­fer parts from one place to anoth­er, many facil­i­ties use con­vey­or sys­tems to trans­port items. These items are tak­en to robots that per­form appli­ca­tions like pick and place, pal­letiz­ing, and pack­ag­ing.

While grip­pers and indus­tri­al mate­r­i­al han­dling robot­ic arms are impor­tant parts of the man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try, it is the con­vey­or that keeps the prod­uct rolling along to its end point.

There are sev­er­al dif­fer­ent types of con­vey­ors that can be used with mate­r­i­al han­dling robots. They can be set up in a straight line or a spi­ral; they can be designed to run along the floor or over­head. It all depends on the facil­i­ty and the product.

The most typ­i­cal and sim­ple type of con­vey­or is the trans­port con­vey­or. It is made up of a con­tin­u­ous­ly run­ning belt or rollers that trans­port mate­r­i­al and pack­ages through­out the facility.

While con­vey­or belts can be used for almost any mate­r­i­al, roller con­vey­ors are best suit­ed for soft-bot­tomed con­tain­ers like card­board box­es, plas­tic totes with irreg­u­lar shaped bot­toms and sit­u­a­tions where var­i­ous sized con­tain­ers are used.

The con­vey­or takes the prod­uct to the robot that will then either trans­fer it to anoth­er place on the assem­bly line, pack­age the item or put it on a pal­let. There are sev­er­al dif­fer­ent types of robot mod­els from man­u­fac­tur­ers like Fanuc, Motoman and KUKA that can be pro­grammed to work with these dif­fer­ent con­vey­or types.

Robots​.com, pro­vides Inte­gra­tion-Ready Robots for Fanuc, Motoman, ABB, and KUKA, as well as oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ers, has design­ers who will work with you to plan out your mate­r­i­al han­dling robot­ic sys­tem, includ­ing which con­vey­ors might be right for you.

Con­tact Robots​.com today at 877−762−6881 or vis­it us online to get a free online quote.