Conveyors: Application, Selection, and Integration (Systems Innovation Book Series)

This new edition continues on its journey of being an introduction to the wide variety of conveyor types and application methods available. It discusses conveyor and system design and in its new edition, expands on information about sorters and motorized roller conveyors, new information on robotic interfaces, as well as some of the trade-offs made when conveyor design rules are intentionally broken. Each chapter now also includes questions and problems to help reinforce the material covered.

Conveyors: Application, Selection, and Integration includes a pictorial of various installations of conveyors in detail that the reader can model after. It presents common application mistakes made and discusses how the reader can avoid them in the future during the integration process. The book focuses on conveyor application information that is offered in just this book and discusses the effect that extreme temperatures have while providing real-life examples of conveyor system design that may at times break common design rules.

This book is a resource for engineers, managers, and executives who want to gain a better understanding of conveyors and their application. It is also for colleges and universities that offer industrial and/or manufacturing engineering curricula.

Patrick McGuire has been in the material handling industry for more than twenty years. He has a BS degree in computer integrated manufacturing systems and a 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, and 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, specializing in unit handling, primarily distribution systems. Rapistan has since been bought by Siemens AG. McGuire was involved with the office that also specialized in building in-process manufacturing systems, such as one-of-a-kind conveyors and systems for giants Corning, Kodak, Xerox, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. He worked as a senior systems engineer and a project manager.

After ten 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 after which becoming 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. Following Transnorm he was the manager of engineering services and director of manufacturing for Glidepath. As a member of CEMA, he co-authored or edited several chapters of the new CEMA Application Guide for Unit Handling Conveyors.

Since leaving Glidepath he was director of engineering at Orteq, a company specializing in heavy equipment for the oil and gas industry. From there he was director of engineering at the Vince Hagan company designing portable and stationary concrete batch plants. There has designed the only concrete plant to fit in a military transport aircraft for the US military. Currently he is a senior project engineer at N. J. Malin and Associates where he leads and mentors a group of engineers and draftsman in the art of material handling problem solving. He and his team have worked with such companies as Mars Wrigley, Ariat, CEVA, Texas Instruments, DHL, UPS, and AT&T delivering unique material handling solutions across the US and Mexico.