The idea of a conveyor has been around longer than most people consider. In it’s earliest form, the idea of a conveyor came about from bucket brigades. Passing down pail after pail of water from one person to the next to extinguish a fire in the most efficient way possible at the time. Today, almost everything in your life has traveled down a conveyor belt at one point or another. Here’s a look at just a few products that might be involved in your everyday life.
Glorious Food!
A majority of the things we eat surf the conveyor belt for most of the creation process. From candy bars to meat products, there really isn’t much that doesn’t travel this way. Some tasty treats are even cooked with a conveyor system, like cookies for example. Not only does the conveyor run them through the oven to bake, but travel long enough to cool before being bagged.
Some other food items that often travel down a conveyor:
- Sweets– Candy bars and most commercially made confections are created on a conveyor line. Layer by layer until at last it’s covered with sweet chocolate, dried and wrapped.
- Vegetables- It’s not just sweets but farm grown goodness that hits the line. A lot of different produce goes down a conveyor for inspection. This way foreign materials that you don’t want in with your bag of potatoes can be removed, leaving only the desired produce to travel further down the line to be washed and waxed so it’s preserved.
- Meat- While it might not be the most pleasant of prospects to consider. Most meat products that are commercially produced travel down a conveyor line. Sparing the details, from the time the animals arrive to the time the finished products is packaged and ship is largely spent on the line.
- Dairy– Ever wonder how the yogurt gets into those little cups? Conveyor belts move packing material along to be filled by finished product, sealed and shipped to a store near you.
- Baked Products- The great conveyor of the food chain has come full circle. Many common baked products like breakfast cereals are packed autonomously with the help of a conveyor belt. These products are packaged through a hopper that dispense a preset amount into every box or bag that rolls down the line.
Wired and Ready to Go
Many household electronic devices are put together on an assembly line. As technology advance many lines are automated, replacing human workers with a robotic arm that can replicate each motion with precision and accuracy time after time. Some lines even incorporate both a human and an automatic component, working in tandem to create a finished project.
Common Electronics Assembled on the Line
- Kitchen Gear- Toaster, blenders, processors and almost every other piece of culinary equipment is conveyed through the factory. From the extruder which raw material is fed via a bucket conveyor to the actual assembly of the equipment itself.
- Hand-Held Electronics- From your trusty mp3 playing your favorite song, to the cellular device that rules our lives, these commonplace devices ride the belt at some point.
- Entertainment Equipment- Televisions, computers, gaming consoles all have the same thing in common, the assembly line.
- Automobiles- Even cars ride the assembly line during creation. Put together piece by piece from frame to finish. This just happens to be on a much larger scale than most assemblies.
- Large Scale Equipment- While you may not be able to fit an entire machine like a drill press or a vending machine onto a conveyor line, many individual pieces that comprise the entire unit are made and transferred on the conveyor line through the warehouse.
Can’t Eat it, Can’t Plug it in…
If it doesn’t fit in with food or electronics, that doesn’t seem to leave much, but there are still a great number of things that are made on a conveyor.
Books and Other Print- While these seem to be disappearing of late in favor of the electronic version, books are still printed, cut and bound on an conveyor assembly.
Materials- Coal is a big one for this category, being moved with a different type of conveyor known as a bucket conveyor, a bucket conveyor moves vertically, dumping raw material into a bin, tank, hopper, or even a centrifuge that spins out unwanted material.
Other Materials Moved Include:
- – Metallic ore on it’s way to be refined
- – Filler Material such as packing peanuts
- – Plastic beading that fuels an extruder for plastic or styrofoam.
It’s difficult to think of something that actually isn’t produced, manufactured, or transported in some way by conveyor belts. This model of efficiency has not only increased production values for many companies but has changed the way almost everything we use on a daily basis is made.
Additional Video:
Our inner nerd forced us to add this video on how to create your own moving conveyor system in Solidworks…
Ashley Danielle
Latest posts by Ashley Danielle (see all)
- Conveyors That Touch Everything You Do - February 26, 2014
