Material handling is a fast-moving field. Even a minor problem, such as excessive fugitive material, can quickly escalate into an expensive outage or production delay.
Choose an industrial belt supplier with customization options to ensure your equipment works well with your specific materials. For example, sure loads may require rugged materials to withstand heavy weight, whereas fragile items require food-grade conveyor belts for safety.
Experience
Industrial conveyor belts may appear to be simple structures: thick bands of black rubber that run around metal conveyor frames, transporting various materials and performing a hugely important role in the industry world. However, they are technically very complex.
It would be best to consider many factors when choosing the right conveyor belt for a specific application. For example, heavy loads may require robust materials with high tensile strength, while fragile products might necessitate a softer surface to avoid damage. It would help if you also considered the operating conditions where the belt will be used. For example, if you operate a food processing plant, abrasive ingredients can wear down and degrade belts not explicitly designed for this environment.
These factors can be overwhelming for anyone unfamiliar with the field. Therefore, it is crucial to choose experienced industrial belt suppliers in PA who can provide technical expertise and advice on material selection and samples for testing.
Customization
Industrial belts are highly versatile pieces of hardware. They allow power transmission over great distances, operate more quietly and smoothly than gears or couplings, mute vibrations, and protect from overloading through belt sliding. However, this doesn’t mean they aren’t susceptible to wear and tear or other environmental factors. Depending on the environment in which your business operates, you may choose a belt rated for anti-static operation, fire resistance, or abrasion resistance.
A reliable belt supplier will be able to work with you to determine what type of material is best for your business’s unique handling requirements. They can also suggest belt materials that work seamlessly with your operations without causing unscheduled downtime, lower yield, foreign product contamination, and other costly problems. Ask your short-listed suppliers for project profiles and references that illustrate their ability to tailor equipment to specific handling challenges. They should also be able to offer custom fabrications if off-the-shelf solutions aren’t available for your operation.
Flexibility
While conveyor belts may appear to be a straightforward piece of hardware, selecting the right one for your facility is challenging. Even the slightest error in this crucial choice can cause problems ranging from decreased yield and cost to unscheduled downtime.
To avoid these issues, assessing the demands your operation will place on the belt system is vital. This includes considering the weight, dimensions, and type of products to be conveyed. Heavy loads may require sturdy materials with high tensile strength, while fragile products might need softer surfaces to prevent harm.
The ideal supplier can provide options based on these and other criteria. They may also offer additional customization services to help ensure the perfect belt for your operations, such as tailoring the surface layer to a particular thickness or adding cleats for better tracking. With this versatility, you can design a conveyor system that helps, not hinders, your workflows.