1. Performance
Simple, although easy to overlook. Will your conveyor carry the size, weight and composition of your product, between levels if needed, at the required speed?
2. Maintenance and Reliability
What level of maintenance is required to achieve the reliability level needed for your entire process?
For example - if your line runs for 23 hours a day, at maximum speed, is a one hour maintenance window sufficient to keep your conveyor running?
Think about tolerance to a problem on the conveyor or elsewhere in the process. Your designer will be able to advise what features are available to help you cope with problems.
Are maintenance and spare parts readily available?
Your designer has data available to forecast maintenance requirements, based on usage.
3. Cost Effectiveness
Over the expected lifetime, does the cost of the conveyor make financial sense when compared to other handling options?
Scalability and Basis for Growth
How likely is it that your requirements will change over time? Will the conveyor be able to adapt, and if so, at what cost?
4. Safety and Hygiene
What equipment and skills are required to keep your line clean and safe?
Ensuring your line is operator safe is a legal as well as a moral duty and keeping your line free of contamination from debris, bacteria or dust is a critical part of many operations.
Since the advent of COVID 19, minimising human contact with conveyors, products and each other has become a top priority. Conveyors can be built with materials and features designed to enhance operator and line safety. Your designer will advise you how to choose materials which are, for example, resistant to bacteria and resilient to high pressure water and cleaning chemicals.
5. Integration
Your conveyor may need to fit with other elements of your handling process. You should consider how easy it is to transfer product to and from the conveyor. Will your conveyor control integrate with your process control and provide the information you need to operate the complete process?
For more information please call us on 01342 311388 or email us sales@autarky.com