Automated Pallet Handling Conveyor for Lowes Efficiency Boost
Implementing a heavy duty powered conveyor system to eliminate the manual handling of 800 pound loads.
Automating door production for enhanced safety.
The Lowe’s Manufacturing plant in Thomasville, North Carolina, produces doors for Lowe’s Home Improvement stores nationwide. To move these products through packaging and shipping, the facility previously relied on gravity roller conveyors where employees had to manually push stacks of doors weighing up to 800 pounds.
Advanced Equipment Company (AEC) was brought in to transform this labor-intensive process into a fully automated, ergonomic operation that prioritizes employee safety without disrupting the established production layout.
Challenge: Eliminating the safety risks of manual material handling.
The existing manual system was a significant ergonomic burden and a primary safety concern for plant executives. In addition to the physical strain of pushing 800 pound loads, the conveyor utilized 90 degree ball transfers that required plastic slip sheets under every pallet just to allow the load to change direction. AEC was tasked with designing an automated replacement that could fit perfectly within the existing footprint, matching the specific heights and layout of the original gravity line.
“Lowes wanted to do away with their existing manual equipment and get something that was more ergonomically fitted toward the operators. They were manually pushing these loads down the long gravity line and, as you can imagine, it was a lot of work to push an 800 pound load down a piece of gravity conveyor,” says AEC Material Handling Specialist Scott Hartman.
Solution: Integrating high capacity powered accumulation.
AEC engineered a turnkey solution using Hytrol 25CREZD Conveyor with special loading zones and zero pressure zoned accumulation. This automated system replaced the manual rollers and ball transfers with integrated chain transfers, which allowed the heavy loads to change direction seamlessly and completely eliminated the need for slip sheets. By duplicating the original layout with powered equipment, AEC removed the physical strain on operators while ensuring the system remained intuitive.
“We had to design an automated conveyor that would fit in the same area that the existing conveyor took up. It was a little challenging to get the correct heights and layout, but we were able to duplicate the layout while replacing the gravity conveyor with power conveyor,” explains Hartman.
Results: Achieving full production with zero Monday morning downtime.
To ensure zero impact on production schedules, AEC managed a specialized weekend installation. When the team arrived on Monday morning, the plant was 100 percent operational and running at full production capacity. The new system eased the ergonomic concerns of facility executives and freed up employees to focus on higher value tasks. The project was so successful that the only feedback from the Lowe’s team was that they wished they had implemented the system sooner.
“The Lowe’s team has told me multiple times how happy they are with the final result. Their only complaint was that they didn’t decide to do the system sooner,” says Hartman.
Results at a glance.
- Ergonomic Transformation: Eliminated the manual pushing of 800 pound door stacks.
- Seamless Implementation: Weekend installation ensured the plant was at 100 percent production by Monday morning.
- Efficiency Gains: Integrated chain transfers removed the requirement for plastic slip sheets.
- Precision Accumulation: Hytrol 25CREZD provides zero pressure protection for heavy palletized loads.
- Safety Optimization: Resolved executive concerns by replacing manual equipment with automated power conveyor.
See the system in action!
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