Transport density

Speed of transport is commonly specified for an AMHS. The origins of this are multiple. Among them are: the urge to reduce delivery time of a wip; the belief that increased capacity of transport results with higher speed; and the necessity to reduce the costly number of transport vehicles. But delivery capacity also is dependent on transport density. And high speed is counter productive in this regard, because it requires increased spacing between WIP. Conveyor networks are designed to balance speed and density by stacking WIP very closely spaced, and yet traveling at moderately high speed. These networks are not influenced by the limitation of vehicle number and cost. Thus are able to transport and buffer wip at ½ meter spacing. This provides unparalleled flow capacity. A single characteristic, most readily focused on when comparing conveyors to vehicle systems.