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Turn your warehouse into a powerhouse
The order fulfillment process refers to all the steps fulfillment centers take from the moment they receive an order until the item arrives at the shipping dock to be loaded onto a truck for delivery.
Century will engineer an efficient order fulfillment solution at every touchpoint in your operations. Our main goal is to optimize your system for output performance, reduce errors that cause returns or item breakage, and to generate profits by processing items faster with less manual interactions.
Conveyor Systems
Warehouse conveyor systems are the backbone of any automated operation, offering a continuously moving assembly line to quickly complete the processing, sortation, and distribution of a package. Conveyors typically use belts or rollers to automate the movement of cartons or pallets, powered by motors. Each warehouse has a specially engineered layout, consisting of a variety of conveyor sections, depending on function.
Benefits
- Durable and reliable, a well-maintained system can last over 20 years
- Various solutions can be added to a conveyor line to increase automation
- Conveyors offer the quickest form of transportation across a facility
- Split and full case order handling ability
Conveyor Types
There exists a number of conveyor types, each specifically designed to handle certain materials or goods, spanning across a number of industries.
If you’re looking for sortation and distribution conveyors, visit our Shipping and Sortation Systems page.
The most widely used conveyor, live roller sections are powered by a motor. Instead of belts, live roller utilizes individual roller pins to transport product.
As the name implies, gravity conveyors are not powered by any sort of motor, but simply by gravity. These conveyors are typically used in packing lines, divert lines, extendables, or EOL operations.
Another common conveyor application, belt-overs utilize belts wrapped over the slider or roller beds. This allows a more stable approach to conveyance, especially for small polybags and parcels. Inclines, declines, and gapping are advantages belt-overs have over live-rollers.
Operating in the same way as a belt-over section, modular belts are different when it comes to the material the belt is constructed of. Instead of vulcanized rubber, modular belts are plastic, and interlock with each other to accomplish different applications (like merging, sorting, descrambling, etc.).
These accumulation conveyors are EOL solutions that utilize advanced sensor setups to provide gapping between items. This is to avoid products touching and causing damage and is used in situations where fragile items are conveyed.
Zero pressure indicates a line that will not let products touch each other
Minimum pressure indicates a line that will slow products down so they lightly touch each other.
Extendables are telescoping conveyors that can be adjusted in specific situations, such as loading a truck or providing a temporary line. These solutions can come in flexible gravity-powered applications, using skate wheels to move product or as a powered outfeeding unit (like an Adjustoveyor).
A spiral conveyor is named as such because it utilizes a gradual incline curve upwards in a spiral structure, to infeed to above-ground operations. Spirals are compact solutions to convey products to additional levels.
Pallet Conveyor Systems
Century can engineer conveyance solutions for your warehouse or distribution center if you primarily handle pallets.
Pallet conveyors focus on stable and durable movement and depending on the weight and type of pallet, different solutions are available to match your warehouse requirements.
These conveyor types support pallets and oversized loads. The item to be conveyed is placed on a platform that is connected to a chain. The chain is then activated and drags the platform along a conveyor section.
Much like a typical gravity conveyor, the only difference in this application is the ability to handle pallets. A pallet gravity section is typically used for staging areas, or in EOL accumulation sections.
For high-output pallet operations, live rollers are ideal to provide the flexibility to move multiple pallets, using a drag chain to operate the rollers.
These powered live roller conveyors are designed specifically for stable, slow-moving bulk items. Poly-V sections are ideal for drums, lighter pallets, and oversized bulk loads.
Robotic Order Fulfillment
Automated warehouse robots, typically defined as either an AGV (automated guided vehicle) or an AMR (autonomous mobile robot) provide transport capabilities, similar to that of a lift truck or goods to person operation.
Benefits
- Quick integration process, compared to other solutions
- Scalable- more systems can be implemented later on, as needed
- Flexible- systems are not “bolted down” like other automation solutions
- Can be customized for specific handling solutions
AMRs are trackless and navigate through their environment by utilizing sophisticated sensors and programming. This allows AMRs to move pallets, cartons, or carts in a highly versatile manner, since they can move freely throughout a facility.
AGVs utilize a variety of sensing components to navigate through the environment it’s deployed in. This can range from magnetic tape and QR code stickers to inductive wires and laser grids.