Tompkins Robotics’ t-Sort system has been selected by Modern Materials Handling, Material Handling Product News and Material Handling 24/7 as a winner of their fourth-annual Readers’ Choice Product of the Year Awards. t-Sort was the winning product in the category of conveyors and sortation. Tompkins Robotics is a business unit of Tompkins International.
The Readers’ Choice Product of the Year Awards honor the achievements of companies for advances in materials handling systems and equipment within manufacturing, distribution centers and warehouses. The editorial teams at Modern Materials Handling and MHPN, “congratulate the award recipients, but the real winners are their customers, who have access to some of the best tools ever for improving safety, efficiency and productivity.”
t-Sort is the first portable, automated material handling sortation system; creating a paradigm shift in how the distribution function of order fulfillment is accomplished. The t-Sort system performs much like a tilt tray or crossbelt sorter. However, the unique and exciting difference is it uses free moving, independent robots. This is the equivalent of having a tilt tray with no track allowing each robot to travel to any divert or induction station independently along the shortest path.
This greatly enhances efficiency to maximize your operational capabilities. Robots, chutes, and induction stations can be added modularly at any time with no interruption or downtime. An additional robot can be added in seconds to increase capacity.
A unique feature is that the system can be purchased on a seasonal or annual basis deferring the capital investment and fully utilizing the asset at all times. This is unlike a traditional sortation system that one buys for their long-term growth plan, purchasing excess capacity that may be underutilized for years.
A typical installation takes only four to six months to go-live. A truly game changing aspect is the system is completely portable and can be relocated to a different space over a weekend. Some features include the range of unit handling, the range of sortation destinations and the configuration and expansion. The type of unit loads t-Sort can sort is very broad including apparel, shoes, cylindrical, and consumer products. t-Sort’s tilt angle and speed can be configured to individual products. t-Sort provides a positive and accurate sort to multiple destinations including shipping cartons, totes, gravity conveyor lines, chutes, bags, and gaylords. t-Sort components are modular allowing the system to increase its operational functionality as needed including the number of robots, sort points, increasing induction stations, and reconfiguring system size, shape and sort functions.
“We are honored to be selected by material handling leaders as a product of the year. Tompkins Robotics’ t-sort system continues to find new applications as organizations define new opportunities for this agile, flexible, modular, portable automated solution and we continue to expand t-Sort’s capabilities,” stated Jim Tompkins, CEO, Tompkins International.
