Put simply, this is probably the first book in 40 years to comprehensively discuss conveyors, a topic that seems mundane until the need arises to move material from point A to point B without manual intervention. Conveyors: Application, Selection, and Integration gives industrial designers, engineers, and operations managers key information they must consider to determine which type of conveyor to purchase and how to optimally integrate it into their system to meet their transport needs.
Tapping into his more than 20 years of experience in the materials handling industry, the author discusses requirements for specific products or materials and environmental factors, covering operation in extreme temperatures. Each chapter details a specific type of conveyor--including chain, belt, and gravity varieties--and highlights its primary features, such as load capacity and rate, and operation. The text also addresses costs and objectives of material handling, exploring rate calculations, controls systems, and other relevant aspects. It includes photographs of actual installations and a glossary of key terms.
Learn from the Experience of a Conveyor Expert
Unless you have conveyor experience, you'll need help deciding on the best mode of transportation for your product. This volume stands apart as an aid in this decision process because it does not take a myopic view of one specific type of conveyor. Rather than solely covering bulk material handling or screw conveyors, it analyzes all of the major varieties of conveyors. This book is not meant to be an engineering manual for designing conveyors, but rather a broader guide to integrating conveyors in a transportation system.
About the Author: Patrick McGuire has been in the material handling industry for more than 20 years. He has a BS degree in computer integrated manufacturing systems and his professional engineering license for industrial engineering. He started with a very small conveyor manufacturer in upstate New York, J & S Conveyors, where he was the Engineering Manager. They designed and built a wide variety of conveyors. They manufactured tabletop chain conveyors, flat belt conveyors, heavy unit load conveyors, and troughed belt conveyors.
After J & S, he went to work for Rapistan, the world's largest manufacturer of material handling systems. Rapistan has since been bought by Siemens AG. Rapistan specialized in unit handling, primarily distribution systems. McGuire was involved with the office that also specialized in-process manufacturing systems. They built one-of-a-kind conveyors and systems for giants such as Corning, Kodak, Xerox, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. He worked as a senior systems engineer and a project manager.
After 10 years of custom product and system design, he took a position with the products group, where he worked on such things as the high-speed divert for airport baggage and then became the product manager for the heavy unit load product line. In that position McGuire led a group of engineers in designing, documenting, and selling a full line of pallet handling conveyors. He has since worked as the Director of Product Engineering for American Ironhorse Motorcycles, and the Director of Manufacturing and Technology for Transnorm System, a specialty conveyor manufacturer.
Currently, McGuire is the Manager of Engineering Services for Glidepath, which is leading a movement of business and engineering systems integration and automation. As a member of CEMA, he co-authored or edited several chapters of the new CEMA Application Guide for Unit Handling Conveyors.
