A lumber transfer system for transferring pieces of lumber comprising a feeding conveyor having a conveying surface for receiving the pieces of lumber; a plurality of grasping assemblies spaced apart transversely along the conveying surface, each one of the grasping assemblies comprising a grasping finger able to be positioned independently for either grasping a piece of lumber located upstream from the grasping assembly and moving it, or preventing it from grasping a piece of lumber; a detection system for detecting a presence of a piece of lumber and producing signals; and a controller controlling the grasping assemblies for the grasping fingers to be positioned independently. The lumber transfer system is therefore able to have only grasping fingers responsible to grasp the piece of lumber to be in a grasping position.

An accumulation system for a conveyor that supports an object for movement along a path. The accumulation system including a clutch mechanism that selectively manipulates the operation of the conveyor via eddy currents to affect the movement of the object.

An article induction system for preparing a stream of articles, such as mail parcels, for processing employs a series of conveyors operating under control of a controller for feeding articles to an operator at a cull belt at an optimal paced rate. The article induction system includes a destacking section, a separation and alignment section, a buffer section and a culling section manned by an operator. A controller controls the speed of each component based on measurements provided by sensors so as to feed articles to the operator at a desired paced rate.

Various embodiments disclosed herein provide for an improved accumulation conveyor and systems and methods for controlling a high rate, high density tunable accumulation conveyor. In one embodiment, an accumulation conveyor system determines whether an item detection variable associated with a second zone of a plurality of zones is satisfied, wherein the second zone is downstream of a first zone. The accumulation conveyor system determines whether at least one of two operational characteristic variables is satisfied. In an instance where both the item detection variable and at least one operational characteristic variable are satisfied, the accumulation conveyor system is configured to set a zone operating state associated with the first zone to inactive and send a command signal comprising the zone operating state associated with the first zone to a control module associated with the first zone. In another embodiment, an improved method for adjusting aggressiveness is disclosed. In another embodiment, a tunable release rate accumulation conveyor is disclosed. In still another embodiment, a tunable crowding accumulation conveyor is disclosed.

A conveyor system and method for cascaded accumulation on a series of in-line roller belts. An accumulation system comprises a series of roller belts that can be actuated in contiguous zones to accelerate conveyed articles forward at twice the belt speed. When articles start to accumulate on the accumulation conveyor, the belt rollers are deactuated downstream to upstream zone by zone. Then the belts are stopped as they fill with accumulated articles. The process is repeated in cascade for the upstream roller belts as articles continue to accumulate.

Embodiments include a parcel processing system and methods for operating the same. The parcel processing system includes a collector configured to receive a flow of parcels and a slug accumulation system configured to receive the flow of parcels and produce a normalized bulk flow of parcels. The parcel processing system also includes a bulk transport conveyor configured to receive the normalized bulk flow of parcels and a singulator configured to receive the normalized bulk flow of parcels from the bulk transport conveyor. The normalized bulk flow of parcels is a flow of parcels having an approximately constant parcel density traveling at a fixed speed.

Devices and methods for buffering articles may include use of an infeed conveyor, an outfeed conveyor, and at least two accumulation conveyors defining a path extending between the infeed conveyor and the outfeed conveyor. Each accumulation conveyor includes an entrance portion adjacent the infeed conveyor for receiving articles from the infeed conveyor and an exit portion adjacent the outfeed conveyor for delivering articles to the outfeed conveyor.

Devices and methods for buffering articles may include use of an infeed conveyor, an outfeed conveyor, and at least two accumulation conveyors defining a path extending between the infeed conveyor and the outfeed conveyor. Each accumulation conveyor includes an entrance portion adjacent the infeed conveyor for receiving articles from the infeed conveyor and an exit portion adjacent the outfeed conveyor for delivering articles to the outfeed conveyor.

A device for accumulating articles within a system may include a frame, a mass-flow infeed conveyor supported by the frame for receiving articles from the system, and a mass-flow outfeed conveyor supported by the frame for receiving articles from the infeed conveyor and returning the articles to the system. A single-filing device is supported by the frame and includes a plurality of parallel endless loop conveyors. The endless loop conveyors each have an upstream end located laterally from and between upstream and downstream ends of the infeed conveyor.

A tray feeding system having a buffer conveyor for trays including a belt with spaced apart free running rollers having a rotation axis perpendicular to the conveying direction. These rollers extend upward from the belt such that the trays partly rest on the rollers. A tray conveyor receiving end is adjacent to an outputting end of the buffer conveyor where items are placed into the trays by a tray filler. A roller interactor is positioned below and adjacent to the surface of the buffer conveyor belt at an outputting end to engage with the rollers at the outputting end area when the buffer conveyor belts move forward rotating the rollers positioned within the outputting end area accelerating the trays on the buffer conveyor within the outputting end area of the buffer conveyor towards the receiving end of the tray conveyor.