Sortation is a tracking problem wearing a mechanical costume. Sunshine State Automation designs, programs, integrates, commissions and recovers high-speed conveyor sortation systems: induction and singulation, merges, dynamic gapping, product tracking, divert control, no-read handling and the WCS or WMS conversation behind all of it.
Nearly every sortation system that misses its number is mechanically fine. The rate was lost upstream, in induction that will not singulate, gapping that was tuned once for a product mix that has since changed, a merge that starves one lane, or a recovery sequence that costs a minute of throughput every time a small jam clears.
We are equally often called to build a sortation system and to fix one that somebody else built and left behind.
Two lanes combined into one continuous stream, with dynamic gapping logic in the PLC setting each release so cartons arrive singulated with the gap the downstream scanner and sorter need, without stopping the line to space them and without an operator babysitting a jam. This is a system we commissioned, running at rate, and it supplies the volume being sorted on the high-speed MDR sorter behind it.
High-speed MDR-based sortation and divert systems, transport lines feeding sorters, merges that supply them, and the accumulation and induction upstream. We work on both new sortation systems and existing sorters that are mis-sorting, missing divert windows or failing to hold their rated throughput.
Almost always lost product tracking rather than a broken divert. Position is dropped somewhere between the scan point and the divert: an encoder, a photo-eye, a speed mismatch, a gap that closed up, or a host handshake that drops messages under load. Finding which one is the work.
Often, yes, and usually without new steel. Rate is normally lost upstream: induction that will not singulate cleanly, gapping that was never tuned to the real product mix, merge priority that starves one lane, or recovery behavior that costs a minute of throughput every time a minor jam clears.
Yes. Barcode scan to sort decision to divert confirmation, including what happens when the host is slow, silent or returns a destination the system cannot honor. Reconciliation and no-read handling matter as much as the happy path.
Yes. The zipper merge on our case-study page runs at 80+ cartons per minute in production, two lanes combined into one continuous stream with dynamic PLC gapping and no stopping to meter. That merge feeds the high-speed MDR sorter it was built for.
Whether it is a new sortation system or one that has never hit its number, we will scope it against your real rates and product mix.