Last Updated on: 22nd November 2023, 05:18 pm
You’re a distribution centre that wants to deliver goods in full and on time. To achieve this, you need to ensure your processes are as efficient as possible. This includes the handling of goods within your facility.
If you’re a production facility, you also need to ensure materials handling is efficient. Raw materials need to be shifted within the facility in an efficient way. This is so that production schedules can be adhered to.
Without an efficient method for handling goods within your facility, you will miss your production targets and goods won’t be delivered on time. This is where belt conveyors are useful. Here’s how conveyor belts improve your business efficiency.
Decrease Unloading Times
Unloading finished products or raw materials from the freight delivery transport is the beginning of any production or distribution business. Nothing else can start until this is completed. Orders can’t be picked from the shelves and you can’t begin production of goods without the raw materials.
This is why conveyor belts are key for decreasing unloading times. They speed up the process of moving products from the truck into the warehouse or production facility. This way, your workers can begin picking orders from the shelves sooner or begin production on your products sooner.
Improve Handling Speeds Between Workstations
In any distribution centre or factory, goods will move from workstation to workstation before it finally reaches its end destination. If this movement is inefficient it will add to the overall handling time and production time of these goods. This leads to longer lead times for delivery of goods to the end user and ultimately affects your business efficiency.
Conveyor belts speed up this process by automating the handling of goods between stations. For example, after adding handles to a trolley a conveyor belt transports it to the next station where wheels are added. This would improve business efficiency in this factory.
Speed Up Order Processing
Every distribution centre’s goal is on-time delivery of orders in full. To achieve this, their order processing needs to be streamlined to ensure goods are picked and packed efficiently. If this process is slow, their order delivery times will be affected.
Conveyor belts help speed up order-processing. Picked orders can be placed on a belt while packers place the goods into boxes or other types of packaging before sending orders to the loading area.
Streamline Quality Assurance Process
Quality assurance for distribution centres generally means shipping the correct items, whereas production facilities want to produce products without defects. A quality assurance process prevents this from happening. However, it can be a lengthy process to inspect every product and package for defects. This might lead to staff overlooking items in a rush to meet deadlines.
This is where a conveyor belt system can help. By having items on a conveyor belt your quality assurance team can check that packages contain the correct items and contain no defects in an efficient manner.
Conveyor Belts Improve Business Efficiency
As you can see, conveyor belts help improve business efficiency by decreasing unloading times, improving handling times between workstations, speeding up order processing, and improving quality assurance.
