What is a conveyor walk down service and Why should you consider having it done?
A Conveyor Walk Down service helps avoid downtime before it happens. Downtime = money. From the head pulley to the tail pulley, we can give you a complete run down of the condition of all of your conveyors and components in your facility to make sure you not only stay up and running, but your system runs efficiently and effectively.
There are many different reasons to do a conveyor walk down service. It could be because customers are trying to get ready for a maintenance shutdown, or they just got through a season. With it getting into wintertime, they might want to walk their conveyor systems so that way they know what to do for inventory planning for the following year. A walk down service gives workers a good idea of repair work that may need done. It could also be for an inventory optimization program that they want to make sure they have critical spares.
Superior offers a site survey program, where they partner up with our solutions specialists here at ErieTec. The team walks down the conveyors while making a list. Joe Gibson, Sales Engineer for Superior, is one of the top five conveyor guys in the country. Joe partners up with ErieTec’s own Connor Steffan, Material Handling Products Manager. Together, they share an immense knowledge about conveyor walk down services.
What is the process?
The process starts by going on site with an ErieTec representative and Superiors’ Territory Manager. They start by walking all the conveyors and doing the complete survey. From there, it may take several weeks to put the report together. After it is complete, it will be presented to the customer. The conveyor is looked at from the tail pulley to the head pulley. Along with the those, the belt condition, tracking, the pulleys and what condition they are in, and the structure and its condition, as well, is all looked over. The team assigned to the belts may be looking at insufficient load support at load zones, which is resulting in spillage at the load zone, and can potentially cause belt damage. This means that they are not just looking for the damage and acknowledging the damage, they are finding the root cause of it and letting the customers know.
The conveyor is being looked at as a complete system, not just focusing on one function of the belt. The experts are looking at the function of the different components. For example, there may be a belt cleaner on there that is not functioning properly, so that is brought up.
What will I receive as the customer?
A power point presentation that itemizes everything found is supplied back to the customer. Next, they look at the load zone and the rolling components, the belt condition, the tracking of the belt, or any other possible problems. An upper-level view of the belt is taken. For example, this could be where 5% of the idlers have failed, or 4% of the pulleys are in poor condition and 10% are in fair condition, the rest are in good condition. Then they go into a belt-by-belt breakdown for every conveyor that maintenance can then use to plan future work. It can even be used to generate needs for capital investment.
Other benefits?
One benefit to this service is that it is a fresh set of eyes on customers’ conveyors that this customer did not have before. This team of experts look at conveyors all over the United States in all different industries. This extra set of eyes is beneficial when maintenance managers have worked with only some types of conveyors, they may not always know what to look out for. There may be other ways to address problems that they are not familiar with, and that is where ErieTec and Superior come in.
Other Services
Customer specific surveys are also available to be done. This could include a pulley survey, where Superior will go in and check every pulley to make sure they are functioning properly. This could also include idlers or cleaners. All surveys can be customized to the customers exact needs and wants.
Contact an ErieTec representative to find out more about this and other conveyor-related services.