Sortation Conveyor Systems

Roller Conveyors

Sortation conveyor systems are used for merging, identifying, inducting, and separating products to be conveyed to specific destinations. There are many different types of sortation roller conveyors including, diverters, pop up devices, sliding shoe sorters, tilt tray sorters, and cross belt transfers. The application dictates which sortation conveyor system is best suited.

Diverter Sortation Conveyor systems utilize stationary or movable arms that deflect, push, or pull a product to desired location within the conveyor system. Diverters do not come in contact with the conveyor so they can be used with almost any flat surface conveyor. They are usually hydraulically or pneumatically operated, but also can be motor driven.

Pop Up Devices consist of one or more rows of powered rollers, skate wheels or chains that pop up above the conveyor surface to lift the desired material and guide it in a different direction. When products don't need to be sorted the pop up device is lowered back into the conveyor system automatically.

Sliding Shoe Sorters or moving slat sorters use a series of diverter shoes that slide across the surface of the conveyor to engage materials and guide them to different sections of the conveyor system. Shoe sorters are sortation conveyor that provide for gentle and gradual handling of materials.

Tilt Tray Sorters and tilt slat sorters provide a combined sorting mechanism and product transporter. Tilt tray sorters are usually designed in continuous loops with a compact layout and recirculation of products not sorted the first time. Tilt slat sorters carry products on flat-surface slat conveyor and can handle wider variety of products compared to tilt tray sortation conveyor.

Cross Belt Transfers are usually either a continuous loop, where individual carriages are linked together to form an endless loop, or they are configured in an asynchronous train style sorter, where a small number of carriers are tied together with potential for several trains running simultaneously. Each carriage is equipped with a small belt conveyor or cell which is mounted perpendicular to direction of main product travel. The cell discharges product to the appropriate destination within the conveyor system. Cross belt transfers automatically separate materials in single lanes to multiple in-line discharge lanes.

Sortation Conveyors are used when a fairly high flow of boxes, totes or other products need to flow to different destinations in a short amount of time. Destinations may be conveyors assigned to individual truck docks, customer orders or other order consolidation assignments.