WHERE IT GOES WRONG
The cost shows up later
Conveyor is where a lot of lines lose money. Buy too light, and a heavy pallet line wears out a conveyor built for cartons. Buy too heavy, and you over-pay for tonnage capacity a small-product assembly line never uses. Spec a fixed system, then discover the line has to be reconfigured next quarter.
The mistake is almost always specifying the conveyor by catalog instead of by the load and the layout. Two questions decide most of it: how heavy is what you’re moving, and how often does the line change?
HOW TO CHOOSE
Match the technology to the job
There’s no single right conveyor. It falls out of the load and the line:
- Light-to-medium products, assembly lines, frequent reconfiguration → a modular aluminum conveyor. Belt, modular chain, or timing belt, built from extrusion you can reconfigure as the line changes; strong for parts, cartons, and work-piece handling up to roughly a ton. (mk North America: 250+ profiles, 20+ conveyor types, products from 33 to 2,200 lbs.)
- Pallets and heavy unit loads, warehousing and heavy industry → a heavy-duty engineered conveyor. Chain-driven live roller, drag chain, accumulation, transfers, and lifts, engineered as a system for high tonnage. (Industrial Kinetics: pallet and unit-load handling up to 50,000 lbs, plus load stackers, pallet inserters, and AMR/AGV interfaces.)
- Pallet handling into an automated cell or AMR fleet → heavy-duty conveyor with the right hand-off (turning cross, AMR/AGV interface) so the pallets feed the automation cleanly. (Industrial Kinetics.)
- Washdown or food-grade → a stainless or washdown-rated belt conveyor built for the environment instead of a standard line repurposed. (mk North America.)
The fork is load class. A modular aluminum conveyor and a 50,000-lb pallet conveyor aren’t competing options. They solve different problems, and the failure mode is picking the wrong weight class for the job.
And when a conveyor isn’t the answer at all, because a robot transfer, an AMR, or an indexing table fits better, we’ll say so. The goal is the line that moves your product at rate.
WHY M6
One source, sized to the application
M6 carries both the light-product and the heavy-pallet ends of conveying, so you get the conveyor matched to your load, and a straight answer when it’s the wrong tool. We’re factory-backed and local: the team that helps you spec the line installs it and supports it, with the manufacturer’s engineering behind us. Bring us in at the design stage, before the layout is locked, and the conveyor gets specified into the line instead of bolted on after.
You leave knowing exactly which class of conveyor your line needs, modular aluminum for light-to-medium product or heavy-duty engineered for pallets and unit loads, and why, before anyone quotes you.
WHAT WE CARRY
The lines we rep for this application
- mk North America: modular aluminum conveyors for light-to-medium products and reconfigurable assembly lines (belt, modular chain, timing belt, pallet/work-piece handling).
- Industrial Kinetics (IKI): heavy-duty engineered conveyor systems for pallets and unit loads up to 50,000 lbs (chain-driven live roller, accumulation, load stackers, AMR/AGV interface).
- WEISS: rotary index tables and LS linear transfer systems that move parts station to station inside an assembly cell, holding position accurately enough for the press, driver, or camera waiting at each stop.
Assembly, packaging, warehousing/distribution, heavy industry & automotive
THE EQUIPMENT
What this looks like on the floor
THE COST OF WAITING
An automation project gets approved with two numbers
One is the equipment quote. The other is what doing this by hand costs you every month, and only you can add it up:
Labor on the task. Hours per shift, at your fully loaded rate.
The rate ceiling. What the manual step caps your throughput at.
Scrap and rework. What manual variation costs you per thousand parts.
Changeover. Time lost every time the part changes.
The hiring problem. Turnover, training, and the weeks the job sits open.
Exposure. Repetitive lift, pinch points, and what one recordable costs you.
We will get you the equipment number and a budget range early, so your request goes up with both.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Common questions
What kind of conveyor do I need?
It comes down to load class. Light-to-medium products and reconfigurable assembly lines run best on a modular aluminum conveyor; pallets and heavy unit loads need a heavy-duty engineered conveyor. The weight of what you’re moving and how often the line changes decide most of it.
What’s the difference between a modular aluminum conveyor and a heavy-duty pallet conveyor?
A modular aluminum conveyor is built from reconfigurable extrusion for products up to roughly a ton, flexible and assembly-line friendly. A heavy-duty pallet conveyor is an engineered system for unit loads up to tens of thousands of pounds, built for tonnage and throughput rather than reconfiguration.
How heavy a load can a conveyor handle?
Modular aluminum conveyors typically handle products up to about 2,200 lbs. Heavy-duty chain-driven live roller systems handle pallets and unit loads up to 50,000 lbs.
Can a conveyor feed pallets into an automated cell or AMR fleet?
Yes. With the right hand-off (a turning cross or an AMR/AGV interface), a heavy-duty conveyor stages and delivers pallets so an automation cell or mobile-robot fleet can pick them up cleanly.