For any industrial unit dealing with the processed food market, the usage of food conveyor systems has made regular operations much faster and way more cost effective than the standard sitting employee approach. While the food conveyor systems are the proverbial life blood of any food processing plant, the system needs to be well maintained including ensuring proper safety and precautions in installation, use and maintenance of these conveyor systems. Here are a few key points.

Proper Installation of Food Conveyor Systems

Before everything else, it is very important that the system is properly installed. Before even picking up the first nut or bolt, you must do a complete floor plan and develop blueprints of where the system will be placed, what will be the height of conveyor belts as well as other attached equipment, what will be the points to draw power etc. The entire process can be done on paper or computer simulations before you start installation. This will help you identify and fix any expected problems without the need to stoop system installation midway. Once you are satisfied with your mapping and blue prints, you can start the actual installation process. Ensure that you follow the blueprint to the T during installation of the food conveyor system to prevent any unexpected challenges.

During installation, it is very important that the food conveyor systems are properly grounded. You need proper grounding to ensure the safety of your product, your conveyor system as well as any other machinery and most importantly of the personnel who are working on the system. The absence of proper electrical grounding will lead to errant electric current leakage which can create a lot of problems from anywhere between frequent electric malfunction to someone being accidentally electrocuted. While in some cases it may be acceptable for the conveyor system to piggyback the grounding for other machinery, ideally the food conveyor system should have its own grounding independent of anything else.

Considerations for operational care of food conveyor systems

Next it is very important to ensure that no one is misusing the food conveyor systems. The conveyor system you installed is rated to carry food, as per a specific weight and placement distribution. Using it to move any other thing can and will lead to problems. There have been cases where employees were found using the conveyor system to move tools down the production line. While this did not create any immediate problem, gradually the conveyor belt started to tilt and buckle under the pressure and gave up causing losses to the tune of millions of dollars. It is important that the employees be properly sensitized about safe and effective use of food conveyor systems.

Sometimes the conveyor you have installed may have a few pneumatically controlled devices. It is very important that proper pressure levels are maintained in the system wherever necessary. You must ensure proper regulator pressure adjustments as well as flow control adjustments for these devices as they have a lot of impact on the overall system life. The pressure in the air line must always be within acceptable parameters. Any attempt to have too much pressure will not only require you to run the air pumps more frequently which may cost too much but even lead to excessive wear and tear in the system and can lead to frequent pressure leakages or even catastrophic system failures.

Like any other machine, the food conveyor system requires care and maintenance. If you are going to get a system installed in your facility, you must be careful about development and following a regular maintenance schedule. Train your employees to identify and report any fault in the system immediately to prevent any further loss of any kind.