How Gantry Palletizing Works
Gantry palletizers allow for multiple infeeds and discharges and will accommodate heavy product at slow speeds. Gantry palletizers pick up layers, rows, or individual products one at a time. Multiple separate packaging lines can be palletized by a single gantry cell and operating speed is up to four placements per minute. Each placement can be a single container, a row or an entire layer of product depending on container size and system requirements. Standard lifting capacity is 500 lbs. which is more than sufficient for most applications.
Full pallets can be removed manually or automatically with a variety of conveyor or shuttle car options. Empty pallets can be positioned manually or automatically with an automatic pallet dispenser and conveyor or a specially designed end of arm tool equipped for pallet handling.
Bags enter the system onto the heavy duty gravity roller conveyor. From the gravity roller conveyor, bags continue to the gapping belt conveyor for separation. The gapping belt conveyor then generates the appropriate gap needed to feed the bags to the turning cross. The turning cross orient the bags appropriately by lifting the bags and turning them +90°, 180° or -90°, as necessary. The bags continue across belt conveyor sections of the turning cross to the row forming belt where rows are generated for palletizing purposes.
The rows of product are pushed onto a stripper plate, which will then accumulate full layers and place them on the pallet. Each row is pushed independently from the other onto the stripper plate. The finger-style pallet dispenser dispenses empty pallets to the palletizing area. The dispenser places the empty pallet onto a pallet conveyor. The slip sheet dispenser places a bottom sheet on the pallet. The pallet then proceeds to the palletizing area. Once the pallet is in the palletizing area, it can receive layers of product. Once a full load has been attained, it is discharged onto a pallet conveyor and ultimately unloaded by a forklift truck.