| Scope | Air conveyor, roller conveyor, depalletizer, palletizer |
| Function | Move bottles and cases without damage, stack outbound pallets |
| Key control | Accumulation pressure, guide rail gap, pattern repeatability |
| Types | Semi-automatic and automatic palletizing |
| Key decision | Manual, semi-automatic or robotic palletizing |
| Automation | Manual, semi-automatic or robotic |
The conveyor is the only part of the line that touches every bottle. Guide rail gaps, transfer plate height and accumulation pressure decide whether bottles jam, scuff or fall. Most unexplained short stops on a mature line trace back to a transfer that was set for one bottle format and never re-set.
Enough to cover the longest normal stop downstream without stopping the filler, and no more. Extra accumulation hides a problem instead of solving it, and it adds floor space plus a place for bottles to sit and collect dust. The buffer size is a calculation, not a default.
| Function | Manual | Automatic |
|---|---|---|
| Depalletizing empty bottles | Rack or hand stack | Layer depalletizer |
| Case palletizing | Operator with pattern sheet | Layer or robotic palletizer |
| Pallet wrapping | Hand wrapper | In-line stretch wrapper |
| Accumulation | None, line stops together | Buffer sized to longest stop |
Reference unit for this duty: the Depalletizing & Palletizing.
When the pattern mix is wide and the pack is fragile. A layer palletizer is faster on one stable pattern; a robot changes pattern by program. Most plants with more than three patterns choose the robot for that reason alone.
Site requirements, air and power consumption sit with the Conveying.
Square pallets, consistent layer sheets and a stable stack. Empty bottles are light, so a leaning pallet becomes a fallen layer at the depalletizer. The machine can only work with the stack it is given.
The same question is worked through from another angle in Palletizers and Depalletizers: Automating the Start and End of.
A depalletizer unloads empty bottles or full cases from a pallet at the start of a line. A palletizer stacks finished cases onto a pallet at the end. They are separate machines with separate footprints.
Guide rail gap and transfer plate height. Both are set for one bottle diameter and both drift when a second format is introduced. Re-set them at every changeover, not once at installation.
It follows the filler rate with margin for accumulation, not the maximum the conveyor can carry. Running a conveyor faster than the line needs increases scuffing and jam severity.
When the pattern is stable and the labour is available at the end of the line. It costs less and runs slower, and it needs an operator for every layer change.
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