Most conveyance discussions start and stop at the bottle. But a packaging plant actually moves three different things, and each one needs different equipment.
Containers move from the unscrambler through filling, capping, and labeling. Cases move from the packer through sealing to the palletizer. Pallets move from the palletizer through stretch wrapping to the dock. The conveyors that handle each are built differently, fail differently, and are specified differently — and a plant that treats conveyance as one problem tends to get one of the three zones wrong.
Used Packaging Equipment has supplied used conveyance and accumulation systems since 1988. This guide covers the equipment types across all three zones and how they fit together.
Tabletop chain is the workhorse of container handling. Individual chain links form a continuous flat surface running on wear strips, available in straight-running and side-flexing configurations for curves. Thermoplastic chain suits most bottle and can applications; stainless chain handles heavy containers, hot conditions, and aggressive washdown.
Mat top and modular belt widen the same concept into multi-lane surfaces, used where containers move in mass flow rather than single file — pasteurizer infeeds, accumulation surfaces, packer collation areas.
Air conveyors move empty PET bottles by blowing air against the neck ring, suspending the bottle in a guided track. For empty lightweight bottles this is dramatically better than mechanical conveyance: no tipping, no line pressure, very high speeds, and the bottles stay off contact surfaces. Air conveying only works for necked containers and only while they’re empty, which is why it’s a blow-molder-to-filler solution rather than a general one.
Elevating and spiral conveyors move containers between levels where floor space won’t allow a ramp.
Once containers are cased, the handling problem changes entirely — heavier units, flat bottoms, no tipping risk, but far more mass to start and stop.
Belt conveyors handle cases well on inclines and declines and where a continuous surface is needed.
Gravity roller is the simplest and cheapest option, useful for short runs, accumulation lanes, and manual staging areas.
Powered roller — commonly chain-driven or belt-driven live roller — carries cases under power and supports zoned accumulation, where sections stop independently to let cases queue without pressure building against the case ahead. Zero-pressure accumulation matters more with cases than containers, because case weight makes back pressure genuinely destructive to corrugate.
Transfers between case conveyors deserve attention. Right-angle transfers, pop-up chains, and pusher arms all move cases between lines, and each has its own reliability characteristics.
Pallet handling is heavy-duty material handling, closer to warehouse equipment than packaging equipment.
Chain drag conveyors move pallets on two or three strands of heavy chain, engaging the pallet’s bottom deck boards. Robust and tolerant of poor pallet quality.
Pallet roller conveyors use heavy rollers for smoother travel, generally requiring better pallet condition.
Turntables and transfer cars change pallet direction or move loads between lines.
Integration with stretch wrapping and dock staging is usually part of the same project. Pallet conveyance also carries the highest safety requirements on the line, given load weight and the consequences of a failure.
Accumulation is what lets zones absorb each other’s interruptions rather than propagate them.
In the container zone, this means mass-flow tables, single-file accumulation runs, rotary tables, and bidirectional reflow tables that divert containers off-line during a downstream stop and feed them back automatically when it clears. Reflow accumulation deserves its own detailed treatment, and it’s the most impactful accumulation decision on most bottling lines.
In the case zone, accumulation is usually zoned powered roller — cases queue in discrete zones without pressure.
In the pallet zone, accumulation is simply staging length ahead of the wrapper and dock.
The sizing principle is the same everywhere: buffer for the interruptions you clear routinely, not the ones that require a maintenance call.
The equipment matters less than how it’s arranged.
Transfers are where things go wrong. Every point where product moves from one conveyor to another is a candidate for jams, tipping, and damage. Minimizing transfer count is usually worth more than upgrading any individual conveyor. Dead plates, transfer combs, and properly set guide geometry are what make necessary transfers reliable.
Curves and side flex. Side-flexing chain handles curves but introduces friction and wear that straight runs don’t. Long runs with multiple curves need drive segmentation.
Elevation changes. Incline angle is limited by container stability and case friction. Steeper than the container tolerates means spirals or elevators instead.
Merges and diverts. Combining lanes into single file and splitting single file into lanes are both specialized operations, handled by pressureless combiners and dividers rather than by plain conveyor.
Drive segmentation. Long runs need multiple drives, and where drive sections meet, speed matching determines whether product transfers smoothly or piles up.
Fixed-speed gearmotors still serve plenty of applications. Variable frequency drives allow speed tuning per product and per line condition, and they’re standard on newer equipment.
The larger question is line control logic. A conveyance system with photo-eyes reporting to a line controller can start, stop, and speed sections based on the actual line state — starving upstream sections when downstream backs up and restarting automatically when it clears. Without that logic, conveyors run at fixed speed regardless of conditions, and operators manage the line by hand.
Retrofitting controls onto a mechanically sound used conveyor is common and generally straightforward.
Chain and belt condition. Stretch, wear, and missing links. Consumable, but tells you the service history.
Wear strips. Grooved UHMW is normal and replaceable; heavily worn strips suggest neglected maintenance elsewhere.
Frame condition. Check for corrosion, especially at fasteners and in washdown zones. Confirm sanitary construction where product contact or food safety requires it.
Drives and gearmotors. Run them. Listen for bearing noise and check for leaks.
Guide rails and hardware. Bent rails, missing adjusters, and improvised repairs are cheap to fix but signal how the equipment was treated.
Rollers and bearings on case and pallet conveyor — spin them by hand.
Length and configuration flexibility. Straight conveyor sections are among the most reconfigurable equipment in a plant, and a used run that isn’t exactly your length can often be cut, extended, or rearranged.
Conveyor is mechanically simple, built from stainless steel and standard components, and remarkably durable. It also comes to the used market in volume, because line reconfigurations and plant closures release large quantities at once — and unlike a filler matched to a specific container, conveyor is broadly reusable.
The modularity is the real advantage. Sections can be reconfigured, shortened, extended, and repurposed across projects in ways that purpose-built machines cannot. Buying used conveyance delivers full line capability at a fraction of new cost, and financing is available.
Used Packaging Equipment has specialized exclusively in used bottling and packaging machinery since 1988, with inventory spanning conveyors, accumulation tables, fillers, cappers, labelers, case packing, palletizing, and complete lines. Tell us your container and case dimensions, throughput, and floor layout, and our team can help scope the conveyance your line actually needs.
Contact our team to discuss your conveyance and accumulation requirements.
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