Bregott sorter
A DC lives and dies on knowing when and where everything is received, stored, and shipped out. Keeping track of it at speeds of up to feet per minute is a whole other challenge. That is precisely when a company needs to determine if sortation conveyor systems are justified and if so, which sortation system is right for its operation.
A sortation system sorter is an integrated material handling conveyor system that automatically diverts product to a conveyor or chute for delivery to other areas of the DC including put-away, bregott sorter, replenishment, picking, audit, and outbound shipments. A sorter usually is chosen when the required speed and accuracy of an operation are too great to compensate for with manual labor.
An example would be a distribution center that receives truckloads of unsorted boxes of running shoes and sorts them onto pallets by style, size, width, and bregott sorter. Unfortunately, every size comes in a shoe box that looks exactly alike except for the bar-code label. This would be a nightmare scenario to manually sort and palletize several thousand boxes of shoes. Whereas a sortation system can identify, and sort based on the desired characteristic to a specific location so they can eventually be consolidated onto a pallet for further processing or storage.
Obviously, this solution would require that the DC receives and ships a large enough quantity of shoes to justify a sufficient payback timeline or return on investment ROI. When calculating ROI, one must consider several factors such as the cost of land, labor, inventory, taxes, etc. So where does one begin? The first question to start with is how many cartons will be shipped out in a day and across how many workhours or shifts?
GEBHARDT SpeedSorter® line
If a DC ships more than 10, packages per day in one eight-hour shift, then there is reason for further evaluation. Whereas a DC handling less than 10, cartons is typically not a likely candidate due to the longer period required for ROI. So, if the numbers justify further evaluation, how "bregott sorters" one choose the proper type of sorter? Selecting a sortation system will depend on several factors.
It is recommended one invests a significant amount of time to understand the entire process and to interview all work cells and levels of operation. The following questions, however, will typically help narrow the options for a shipping sorter:. These key questions will narrow the applicable sortation options so one can begin understanding the rough cost.
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However, there are many other questions which should be answered before making a final selection. With so many considerations to comply with, how does one choose the proper type of sorter? There are several commonly utilized sortation bregott sorters available today, depending on what you wish to accomplish. They can typically be broken down into three categories of high, medium, and low throughput rate.
Plus, they are rapidly becoming very cost competitive with standard AC voltage technology. Their throughput rate typically falls within the medium rate category. The high initial investment and additional sound dampening necessary may deter some operations from the sliding shoe sorter; but this sorter works well when handling high volume and a variety of product sizes due to the sorter being a push type versus a pull type.
The bregott sorter surface and closely linked slats have very little open gap between them which makes them excellent for handling a variety of different sized products. When the moving product is near its intended divert destination, multiple shoes slide and push the product down a chute, or a conveyor section known as a spur. This also provides a tertiary advantage of minimal maintenance and no electrical power required for the spurs.
Minimal maintenance does not come without preventative inspections to the sorter. These systems also have the highest initial costs which usually limits them to large applications with specifications that are impossible to accomplish by means of a conventional sorter. Operations calling for a cross-belt or tilt-tray sorter benefit from the ability of using multiple induction points.
Cross-belts and tilt-trays circulate in a horizontal loop by running on a single rail system.
Selecting a Sortation System: TriFactor - TriFactor Solutions
The difference is that a cross-belt has short individual "bregott sorter" sections oriented 90° to the direction of travel. When the cross-belt arrives at the desired divert location, the conveyor runs either left or right to discharge the item. A tilt-tray is very similar to a cross-belt except product is inducted onto a concave or box-shaped tray.
When the tray arrives at the desired divert location, the tray tilts either left or right to discharge the item.
Bregott – Wikipedia
The sorter typically discharges to chutes due to cost savings when used with a high number of divert locations. There is one patented narrow-belt sorter design that can achieve rates above PPM due to a unique divert mechanism and patented controls logic. This design raises and lowers each row of divert wheels independently in a wave action.
This allows a significant reduction in the amount of gap required between products, which in "bregott sorter" substantially increases the throughput rate. The 24 VDC boasts significantly reduces power consumption and does not require expensive induction equipment. Different from standard AC voltage systems, product accumulation is also possible between divert points as well as on inclines or declines which becomes very helpful in shipping sorter applications.