Flexible Zone Recognition

I know what you thinking. What in the world is Flexible Zone Recognition and why do I need it for my conveyor? Well, let me tell you.

Flexible Zone Recognition will automatically detect that a given item being conveyed is longer than one zone length and will automatically adjust accumulation control so that the longer carton occupies two logical zones. This will also keep the next upstream carton from conveying into the longer carton. Flex Zone mode operates for both singulation and train release modes and is the default operation of a ConveyLinx installation. One thing to note, Flex Zone mode only operates for carton lengths up to 2 zone lengths. Attempting to operate a conveyor system with cartons whose lengths are in excess of 2 zone lengths will produce undesirable results such as excessive detected jam conditions and faults.

FlexZone is a great feature for distribution and manufacturing facilities that may run a larger package several times a year,(i.e. Christmas) but don’t want to design the conveyor to hold a larger size package. With Flex zone you just design the conveyor to your typical package size and let Conveylinx work for you with the larger packages.

Emo Note: Keep in mind however, that on a systems where the length of the box is variable and some boxes are actually longer than the distance between sensors you might see a drop in throughput. This happens because when a carton blocks two photoeyes simultaneously, the two zones automatically start acting as a single very long logical zone (FlexZone) . For this to be reversed, and for the two zones to switch back to being two individual zones, that long box needs to clear both photoeyes. This will delay upstream boxes and will look as if there is an excessive gap between cartons. This situation is normal and can also be caused by misplaced photoeyes. For example on a system with normal size boxes, a sensor placed too far upstream may actually cause the activation of the FlexZone even though boxes are shorter than the supposed distance between sensors.