General Motors Doubles Weight Capacity with Intralox Solution

Customer Objectives

Shortly after the General Motors (GM) plant in Rayong, Thailand, began producing pick-up trucks and SUVs in addition to passenger cars, personnel initiated a search for a heavier-duty belting solution that could accommodate a wider range of vehicles. The original belting was showing visible signs of wear and couldn’t handle the increased weight of larger vehicles—two tons compared to the one-ton passenger cars. GM required a longer-lasting, low-maintenance belting solution.

Intralox Execution

During a visit to the Rayong plant, GM personnel showed an Intralox representative the leak test area in operation. The Intralox rep suggested replacing the belt with Intralox Series 10000 Non Skid Perforated belting and wheel chocks. As Intralox’s strongest, most durable belt, S10000 allows longer and narrower leak tests with heavier loads. The non-skid surface minimizes operator slippage when walking across the belt, and the perforated design allows sufficient drainage and reduces water carryover. S10000’s removable wheel chock system provides flexibility to adjust wheel chock height according to any vehicle model mix.

Intralox’s dedicated technical support and service made sure every step of the installation went as smoothly as possible. Intralox experts made three project planning visits to the Rayong plant to ensure a complete understanding of the application and the conveyor requirements, and performed a full conveyor analysis to confirm performance and safety factors such as dynamic motion and belt strength. Extensive support was provided during retrofit design, installation, and startup by translating extensive design guidelines and sending three engineers to the plant.

Results

Since installation, the Intralox S10000 solution continues to deliver improvements for GM. The Intralox belting runs smoothly with no surging and improved sprocket engagement, even at full capacity. The combination of the belt’s great strength and the robust wheel chocks pulls vehicles onto the conveyor with ease, eliminating the need for operators to drive cars onto the belt. Additionally, the Intralox belt has required zero maintenance since installation.