Even as signs point to a more stable post-pandemic age, many things will never be the same, such as the demand for faster, high-quality food and beverage production and fulfilment. We see this changing the face of ecommerce with food and beverage manufacturers working hard to meet ecommerce needs with the transfer conveyor. But they need a much broader level of adaptability for conveyors to meet ecommerce demands from now on.
Whether you’re a fulfillment center or production facility, online shopping and ecommerce drives your business. But ecommerce environments are in a virtual push and pull with supply chains to meet fulfillment where conveyors are the heart of moving products quickly and efficiently. Every sector dealing with ecommerce fulfillment requires that conveyors deliver flexibility that meets process needs such as with an accumulation conveyor. These needs take on distinct challenges in food and beverage production.
For a material handling conveyor manufacturer in Canada, also serving the USA brings no major historical differences in ecommerce conveyor design. Conveyors have needed to move heavier loads with greater accuracy and diversion needs. Weight may not be the greater challenge in ecommerce food and beverage production, but diversions are more frequent and complex.
Challenges and needs of eCommerce Conveyors
Ecommerce conveyors must be all things and be adaptable to all needs such as being a transfer conveyor at some stages and an accumulation conveyor at others. Along the way are precise needs for other merges, diversions, rotations, and product sorting. Costs and regulatory requirements are always affecting production in terms of the needs for manual or automated intervention for:
- -Depositing and rejects
- -Inspection, testing, and sortation
- -Product handling of all shapes and sizes
Some goods are more perishable than others in food and beverage ecommerce so preserving quality and meeting regulatory demands will always overrule costs in these non-compromise areas.
The short time to market, quick flow of product, complex internal process alignment, and supply chain demands all put more pressure on food and beverage commerce fulfillment and manufacturing environments. The conveyor system, which has not historically been highly adaptable, sits at the center of this challenge and must be the most adaptable production link.
Conveyor Modularity for eCommerce Fulfillment
Today’s development of highly configurable equipment and modular conveyors can now enable highly changeable production environments. An example is the transfer conveyor, which becomes a modular section that can be designed to meet variable length and speed parameters. The accumulation conveyor can also deliver a great deal of design variability to meet production speed and sorting needs. As important parts of the conveyor system, leading conveyor manufacturers compete by designing, engineering, and implementing modular conveyor systems that easily integrate with:
- -Automation
- -Diversion points
- -Curves and inclines
- -Spiral conveyors
- -Varied sorting and accumulation points
Modular conveyors give manufacturers countless side-channel configuration options in e-commerce, where conveyors and sorters must adapt to individual products. That may mean reconfiguring a conveyor system from transportation to accumulation functionality as one example.
Modular architecture means production facilities can upgrade or expand rapidly with faster maintenance and a host of options within a standardized modular parts catalog. Ecommerce environments can use this flexibility to adapt to changing needs such as phasing in automation or making more time sensitive configuration changes. This ability is paramount in ecommerce food and beverage production/fulfillment to:
- -Enable more precise changes to load positioning and sequencing
- -Make it easier to integrate automation and goods -to-person workstation configuration
Today’s material handling conveyor designs and functionalities must be adaptable to very broad sector needs. As operation needs change based on increasing ecommerce consumer demands, conveyor system manufacturers must bring the right mix of configurability for customization and standardization for cost control. To learn how Conovey partners with SpanTech, a leader innovator in modular conveyors to make that happen for your ecommerce production environment, follow this link.
