In the world of conveyor systems, VTUs, or vertical transport units, go by many different names: elevator, lift, and vertical reciprocating conveyor just to name a few. No matter what you call it, a design engineer’s goal in using a VTU is usually fairly commonplace: lift a section of the conveyor, and the product on it, from one level to another. But...

Improve the effectiveness of transfers throughout your customers’ automation lines with these modular transfer options from Glide-Line. Whether you’re looking for a simple conveyor-to-conveyor transfer device or a conveyor unit that will help transfer products from one piece of equipment to another, Glide-Line’s configurable options give the gentle handling, swift motion, and equipment efficiency you’re looking for. Here are some options we think you’ll love (because our clients already do!).

Glide-Line offers several vertical lift conveyor application options. These VTUs can be applied to solve unique challenges in your conveyor automation system design. For instance, you can reduce floor space for your conveyor system, utilize the precision aspect of our VTU in interesting concepts, and increase automation system throughput with these vertical lift conveyor applications. And, at Glide-Line, these VTUs are part of our standard product offering of automated conveyor solutions.

At Glide-Line, VTUs are multi-purpose solutions used to creatively solve challenges other manufacturers have failed to solve. VTUs can be more than a simple application to move products vertically, just as conveyors can be more than a single-function piece of equipment to move products horizontally. Combining them has allowed us to apply creativity to challenges design engineers are asked to solve every day.

Robotics Tomorrow recently published this article. From a flexible conveyor manufacturer: industry trends we’re seeing Here at Glide-Line, we make conveyors - specifically, flexible, configurable conveyors built to very specific measurements to fit limited spaces which can be configured with a “zero product to product contact” design philosophy, all with impressively short lead times. We’ve noticed three trends in the past year that are creating demand for what we have to offer:

Indexing pallets or products along an assembly line has traditionally been accomplished by a series of pneumatic stops that pop up and create physical barriers along the line. This method may work for many of your clients, but not all. The traditional “pop-up” barrier conveyors can cause product damage thanks to hard stops without smooth deceleration or additional control techniques. They can also be dangerous for operators and generally clunky.

Let’s be honest: traditional accumulation methods are just okay. They’re not the worst, but there are some drawbacks. They cause your client’s conveyor system to run less efficiently (thanks, backpressure and friction), and traditional accumulation methods can also cause product damage due to unavoidable collisions on the line. Even if you add stops to halt progress upstream, products can be jarred and dislodged quickly because there is no gentle deceleration of the pallet.

Roller chain conveyors are often the first solution that comes to mind when you start looking for cost-effective, heavy duty solutions for a client. However, these traditional conveyors come with a host of expenses, from expected maintenance costs to unthought-of innovation opportunity costs. When application engineers come to us for outside-the-box ideas, we have a solution that addresses these challenges. Here are four common roller chain conveyor maintenance costs the Zero Contact Zoned Conveyor reduces or eliminates.

Medical devices have important jobs to perform. From testing kits to surgical instruments to complex technology, there’s no room for error in assembly and no time to waste on damaged products. These elegant products need an equally elegant indexing conveyor solution, and that solution needs to have clean-room capacity, no jostling, and a completely controllable movement. Enter: the Zero Contact Zoned Conveyor from Glide-Line.

Often we find that the incorporation of manual assembly steps can be a good option for an assembly operation. Sometimes the payback wouldn’t exist by full automation, or other times it would be a very complex task for a machine. Either way, manual assembly may be a necessary part of your product build, but it doesn’t need to be inefficient or unsafe in the process.