Tuff Built Belt Conveyors / by Mitch DeHaan

When designing and integrating material handling systems for customers in a wide range of industries, Tuff Automation gives its utmost attention to designing conveyor that will handle a wide variety of different products. We understand that our customer’s applications and needs can change at a moment’s notice. Especially in the automotive industry.

Taking this into consideration, we give the utmost attention to choosing a type of conveyor that provides the most versatility. Even though our brand as a company is more so reputable towards conveyor that provides a high weight capacity (<2,000 lbs.), the most versatile type of conveyor that we apply to light and mid-level weight capacities is belt conveyor.

As we roll into the busy “summer shutdown” season, and we start building and installing systems that include belt conveyors, we continue to receive feedback from our customers.

With that said, here are a few key attributes of our belt conveyors that our customers value.

Tuff Built Means “V” Guided

Our highest priority when designing equipment is providing long lasting equipment that requires the least amount of maintenance. We know our customers value this because it attributes to their decrease in system down time to provide repairs or maintenance to their equipment.

All belt conveyors that come out of Tuff Automation are “V” guided. “V” guided means the belt on the conveyor will track straight with little or no need to realign it. Depending on cycle time and weight of the product being conveyed, this can prevent the need for any maintenance crew to realign the belt every couple of weeks.

Tuff Built Means Maintenance Friendly

Even though our engineers do their best to prevent the need for maintenance, we also understand that maintenance will be required from time to time. Therefore, we engineer our belt conveyors with innovative designs to allow for quick disassembling and simple component replacement.

This picture of the drive shaft shows a perfect example of how we do that. If, for whatever reason, this shaft needed to be replaced, any maintenance team could simply remove the four bolts, and use the access slot to the left to pull the shaft assembly out of the conveyor. This allows the maintenance team to work on the shaft assembly on a separate work bench with unlimited access to any part of the assembly.

Tuff Built Means Heavy Duty Components

Any customer appreciates when a company, who provides them a service, goes the extra mile for their benefit. Tuff customers are no exception to that. Even though machine maintenance is practically inevitable, our customers appreciate when we go the extra mile to provide heavy duty components.

Heavy duty premium components play a huge role in minimizing the need for routine maintenance. In fact, the role of heavy duty components influences this priority the most. And even though these premium components can contribute to a higher price tag, our customers understand that the higher cost they pay now is significantly lower than the cost of shutting down production for maintenance later.

All in all, our customers value the strength, quality, and durability that Tuff Automation equipment brings to their material handling system. The way we design and fabricate our equipment correlates to the mentality that our customers have when choosing Tuff as their equipment provider. That mentality is, Tuff Automation equipment is an investment for the betterment of their company’s future.