A roughly 5-year-old technology—the angled roller belt, or ARB—is to conventional belt operations what the airplane was to the hot-air balloon. The ARB system incorporates rollers within modular plastic belting. The rollers not only extend above the top surface of the belt but also below. Those rollers can be actuated from beneath the belt—utilizing the belt’s forward motion—to cause product on the belt to move. This method is a departure from prior conveyance methods because previously, a product on a belt stayed in one position unless acted upon by something other than the belt (a pusher, for instance).
A new angle on conveyor belt operations
Jan 10, 2008