Conveyors on top of the steel super structure route cases to several destinations. Most go to a palletizer but there are additional spurs and lines to move the product where needed.

Hytrol automates distribution center at Meyer Corp.

Before installing the Hytrol system at Meyer Corp. workers came to work each day faced with a demanding task of manual unloading and palletizing heavy boxes of up to 40 pounds each that were stacked 8 feet high. The job required scores of workers, usually temporary staff. Today, with the help of the efficient Hytrol conveyor system, throughput has been significantly increased. Only a few workers are required to operate the system and they no longer have to manually lift and move the boxes for palletizing.

The product arrives at the distribution center in 40 ft. and 45 ft. high-cube sealed containers. Product (boxes of cookware such as pots and pans) is unloaded and workers place the boxes onto an extendible conveyor. The extendibles feed a Hytrol live roller spur conveyor feeding a Hytrol zero-pressure accumulation line which in turn feeds an incline belt to the top of the McCombs-Wall provided steel structure. Here, on top of the super structure, the overhead conveyor merges with re-circulation on top and feeds cases at a rate of 45 cases per minute to a Hytrol induction gapper. An overhead scanner reads the bar code and assigns one of the two active and one future sort destinations for accumulation of one full pallet of product. Once the pallet case count is complete, the line is automatically released to the palletizer via a decline belt conveyor to a mid-level, ceiling-supported conveyor. This ceiling supported conveyor is attached to the structure, above the extendibles.

A chute is provided down stream of the accumulation line to dump cases to the floor in the event the palletizer is down, or non-palletize-able product is conveyed to the upper level. Two additional sort destinations are available for cases which cross the scanner. One is the no read line. The other is the case cross-dock destination, which allows cases from an overseas container to be routed back to another extendible to reload a delivery truck. This is in the event the receipt was not for inventory.

Jarod Sproule, Project Manager and Distribution Center Manager: "The unloading time for a container went from several hours to less than an hour per container."
 
Michael Rummelhoff, Vice President of Operations: "Serious consideration was given to the actual footprint used for this project, minimizing the loss of storage and increasing the amount of staging area on the dock."
 
Gail-Adela Fabricante, Safety Manager for Meyer Corp.: "There is a significant return on investment when you consider the handling of the product and the direct relationship with work-related injuries."

An end view of the steel super structure shows the palletizer at right and a loop of Hytrol roller and inclined belt at left.

Hytrol Gapper sortation conveyors are used to accumulate cases of like SKU’s for palletizing on the upper deck.

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