Modeling of chain conveyors and their equipment interfaces

Chain conveyors are a specific type of conveyor often used in a variety of manufacturing and production applications, such as body and paint shops. These conveyors must typically interface with other types of conveyors such as cross-transfer conveyors, and also with other material-handling equipment such as lift tables and hold tables. Micromodeling of chain conveyors and their equipment interfaces requires close attention to numerous details. These details include not only static and operational properties of the chain conveyors themselves, but also the particulars of dimensional and operational interfaces of the conveyors and the equipment served by the conveyors, such as lift tables and the conveyor acceleration and deceleration ramps. In this paper, we first delineate the situations in which micromodeling of material-handling equipment is appropriate. We then present an overview of conveyor types and terminology. Next, we describe the challenges of modeling chain conveyors accurately, and our recominendations for meeting these challenges within the framework of typical modeling tools and simulation-study contexts. As an example, we present details of these recommendations relative to the AutoMod modeling tool. In conclusion, we summarize these recomendations and indicate promising directions for further development of modeling techniques and enhancement of model-building tools.