Inspired by pure frustration with available technologies, Glide-Line embarked on a journey to redefine what’s possible with automated conveying and product handling solutions. Over the last decade, we’ve kept our focus on our core principles. These are:
This persistent effort eventually led to a product range that provides extensive modularity, cost, and simplicity benefits to our customers. Today, Glide-Line has the most flexible conveying solutions available and is constantly working to apply our collaborative spirit to new challenges.
One of our recent projects in the life sciences manufacturing industry benefited from our willingness to revisit and rethink what’s possible. Let’s explain.
A customer had previously submitted a bid on a project for a high-profile medical manufacturing company. As the application required automated product handling, the initial proposal included roller-powered conveyors.
From our own experience, we knew that this design had some limitations when it comes to delicate product handling applications. Some of those include:
Glide-Line’s product team felt confident that we could supply an adequate solution using our alternative twin string timing belt technology.
Glide-Line decided to assess some of our other solutions against the same application requirements. The results were undeniable.
For any other product-handling manufacturer, making this kind of decision would be a non-starter. However, Glide-Line found that not only could we improve the design, but we could also deliver a more robust, flexible, and cost-effective solution – and more importantly – stay on schedule.
We didn’t just provide a more efficient system, but our multiple-axis, multi-strand conveyors could fit perfectly within the requirements of the original program. The system allows for controlling traffic while eliminating any hard stops that could lead to product damage. Totes, trays, and pallets all travel through the facility on conveyors that elevate, orientate, and transfer items between processing stages.
The demanding application requirements involved in the life sciences industry also made our timing belt solution a better option. The clean design and configurable layout meant we could quickly fit different customized standard conveyor solutions into the overall system to achieve better results than the previous proposal.
Yet, the biggest benefit our system provided was a cost saving over $400k compared to the roller-powered option (half the cost!). Delivering such an optimized design within these time constraints required our engineers to collaborate extensively across different organizations and project teams.
If you have a demanding conveying application, consider Glide-Line as your go-to resource for handling totes, trays, pallets, or products throughout your process.
To see what product handling capabilities we have to offer, download our Ultimate Guide on Creating a Flexible Automation Conveyor eBook here.