How the Moving Assembly Line Revolutionized the Conveyor Belt

At the beginning of the 20th century, the car's business model wasn't completely effective. Most cars were considered a luxury many could not afford to spend the time or money on.  In order to create "a motor car for the great multitude," Henry Ford realized new innovations were necessary—and so the assembly line was born.

Utilizing four principles (interchangeable parts, continuous flow, division of labor, and reducing wasted effort), the factories began mass produce car parts. To increase workflow, the conveyor belt, a product developed a few years prior was incorporated into production. This process revolutionized the automotive industry and sparked a new relationship between the warehouse and conveyor belting.

Now, in the 100th anniversary year of the moving assembly line, it's safe to say this process put the world on wheels. Car and Driver's piece on the development of this process highlights how the production numbers greatly increased as prices went down—and eventually, the world was on the road.


The conveyor belt assembly line is used in a number of industries, from mining to food processing. As manufacturers of conveyor belting and conveyor belt solutions, we’re proud to work in an industry that has caused so much growth, employment and innovation. For more information on our wire belting and other products, check out our website.

How Can Conveyor Belts Increase Mining ROI?

Canada’s mining industry is strong. The Toronto Stock Exchange and the TSX Venture Exchange makeup 58 percent of the world’s public mining companies, and Canada ranks in the top five in producing nickel, platinum, aluminum, diamonds, and many other resources.

There’s always room for improvement. If your technique is slowing down the process, it doesn’t matter what minerals you’re mining or how well the industry itself is doing. Although there are many ways to mine a product, don’t you want to know the best way to add to existing capacities while increasing the return on investment?

Here’s an example of how to boost production: Say your company uses a slope—most are rectangular with a wide span for the floor and roof—to remove goods because drilling directly down isn’t an option. You notice it’s increasingly tedious to bring mined goods up to ground level, and you’re looking for a solution. This is where installing conveyor belts can help speed up production and increase the ROI as an end result. Conveyor systems are an easy-to-use, consistent way to raise production levels, and they allow workers to better inspect minerals as they head to the surface.

Check out this model of an underground mine with a conveyor system:

We at Furnace Belt have been working for almost four decades to offer the highest quality round-wire woven and flat metal belting for mining operations. In order to maintain a high level of mineral production and boost your company’s profit, we hope you’ll turn to us for all your custom conveyor belt needs.

Mining Landfills Can Help Save the Environment

There seems to be endless benefits of recycling. The programs save money, energy, and trees. It generates 1.1 million in U.S. jobs, $236 billion sales annually, and $37 billion in salaries. The process reduces air and water pollutants and conserves natural resources. Most importantly, it keeps products out of landfills—but what will happen to the products already in landfills? That’s where landfill mining and reclamation comes in.

Landfill mining and reclamation is a process consisting of excavating and processing solid wastes that are currently in a landfill—in hopes of retrieving space, soil, and recyclable materials. The process, which dates back to the mid-1900s, aides in reorganizing landfills that are poorly operated or are not up to health codes.

Most landfills established prior to 1994 were closed off to seal the waste. In addition, many landfills were developed without linings to separate the landfill and original environment, meaning the waste can seep into the surrounding groundwater, harming land and unleashing legal liabilities.

Mining and reclamation begins by dividing the landfill content and excavating it onto different screens on a conveyor belt—large wastes are caught in the screen while soil falls through the small screen openings. Here is an example of a landfill mining process:

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This relatively new mining process helps bring the area to an environmental equilibrium, reduce the overall landfill’s size, and recover recyclables. Good candidates for landfill mining and reclamation processes are those where excavators can get an idea of how the landfill was created, the uses of potentially recovered materials, and the current condition of the waste.

Our Work in Open-Pit Mining (Part One of a 2-Part Mining Series)

All components of a blast furnace must be
able to withstand extreme heat.

When one of the largest mining consortiums in the world contacted us to deliver conveyor belting for their mining operations on two different continents, we knew it would be a challenge, but we also knew we were up for it. What we didn’t know at the time was that the customized weaving we would eventually produce would prove to be our most ambitious industrial belt-work to date.

The client in question operates multiple nickel refineries in different locations across the globe. One essential part of the nickel refining process is the desulfurization of unrefined “ore” into nickel briquettes. Desulfurization allows for excess quantities of extraneous sulfur to be extracted from the raw material, leaving the nickel itself in a more “purified” state, as well as giving it greater properties of corrosion-resistance. Needless to say, desulfurization requires a blast furnace of epic proportions, particularly on the monumental scale by which most nickel processing operations get carried out in today’s hyper-industrialized world. Furthermore, and almost needless to say, the conveyor belting that carries the raw nickel into the blast furnace in order for it to be desulfurized needs to have two essential qualities: first, that it be capable of withstanding the tremendous heat of the blast furnace; and second, that it be capable of handling the tremendous turnover rate at which industrial-scale mining is conducted.

We set out to instill those two qualities in the work we performed on behalf of our client. What we ended up delivering to our customer was, in of itself, a work of art by the standards of our industry: a 60” wide conveyor belt capable of enduring immense blast furnace heat at a level commensurate with our client’s rigorous standards.

With our experience crafting high-performance equipment for major players in the mining industry, we have grown increasingly interested in the various types of mining operations that happen around the globe, and how our belt weaves can be adapted and/or customized for specific kinds of mining (open-pit mining, etc.) An upcoming blog will explore some of the various types of mining operations that require industrial-sized conveyor belts to insure their proper functioning. In the meantime, we are pleased to add that our client has been very happy with the work we delivered on their behalf. For further questions about how Furnace Belt can be of service to your given mining operation, please contact us today by phone or by email.