The Emerging Market for Steerable Wheel Tables
Guest blog by Vincent Sallé, Vice President of Warehouse Automation, for Johnson Electric (MHI member)
Steerable wheel tables are gaining momentum as alternatives to pop-up diverter modules. Many original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have started to incorporate them into their systems over the last five years or are considering doing so soon.
But are they a temporary trend or a long-term replacement technology? There are signs that steerable wheel tables are just getting started and are here to stay. In this article, we’ll explore the new capabilities they offer and the benefits that are attracting attention to this versatile technology.
Pop-up Diverts vs. Steerable Wheel Tables: What’s the Difference?
Pop-up diverters are a long-established sortation technology. Modules of angled wheels or lateral conveyor belts are interspersed between rollers, “popping up” when an item needs to be diverted — most commonly at a fixed angle of 30°, 45°, or 90°.
Steerable wheel technology is a more recent development that replaces rollers and pop-ups with an array of motorized wheels. Unlike pop-up modules, which tend to support only one fixed angle, the wheels can typically rotate up to 90° in either direction from the main line. As a result, a wider range of diverting functions becomes possible — often with more compact units.
Some steerable wheel tables also feature more flexible and modular designs than traditional pop-ups. In such cases, they can be scaled to virtually any size the end user requires. Parcel weights and the customer’s available floor space define the upper limit.
What’s Driving Interest in Steerable Wheel Tables?
The high-level explanation for the popularity of steerable tables is their versatility. They can do everything pop-up diverter modules do — and more — while providing unique productivity and efficiency benefits. Advantages generating significant industry interest include the following.
Robust Package Handling
Imagine trying to move a stepladder, rolled-up carpet, or mattress on a conveyance line. Most operations won’t even attempt this because they have no way to divert these items. Yet approximately 10 percent of all e-commerce orders involve large, irregular objects or parcels like these.
Until recently, irregular parcels needed to be handled manually by scarce and expensive labor. Steerable tables create new options for automating the handling and diverting of these items.
At the other end of the spectrum, modern sortation systems need to process a greater variety of smaller, non-rigid items. As recently as 10 to 15 years ago, most shipments went into boxes or totes that could be managed with high-speed shoe sorters. Since then, direct-to-consumer e-commerce has dramatically increased the number of smaller parcels containing just a few individual items.
Dimensional weight (DIM) pricing models, introduced by major carriers in 2015, led to wider use of bubble packs, polybags, jiffy bags, and other packaging formats that can catch or fall through the gaps in conventional pop-up diverters, especially if they’re small or have flexible contents like apparel. These items often required special equipment or hand-sorting before steerable tables became available. Today, steerable tables can handle items as small as 4 x 3 in. (100 x 76 mm).
Higher Throughput
Diverters matter to throughput because they’re typically the slowest components in the system. As a result, the worst-case scenario for the least efficient divert point often limits the guaranteed throughput of the entire line.
Pop-up modules aren’t built for high-speed applications. They’re usually powered by pneumatic systems, which limit their maximum actuation speed. To make matters worse, compressed air systems have multiple potential points of failure and deliver notoriously inconsistent performance, even when running properly.
By contrast, steerable tables are powered by electric motors capable of actuating much faster, with reliable consistency. The higher the throughput of the table, the higher the throughput of the entire system.
Easier Installation and Maintenance
Although higher throughput is one of the key advantages of steerable tables, electrification delivers other benefits by eliminating the hassles of pneumatic systems. Installation is greatly simplified — it’s essentially plug-and-play. There are no compressors, air lines, or belts to mess with, which simplifies installation and maintenance.
The failure of any pop-up component almost invariably leads to a complete shutdown of the line. Even though the modules can be lifted out and replaced, the trays are typically very heavy, requiring multiple people or a hoist to remove and install. A well-trained crew familiar with this process might be able to manage a replacement in about 30 minutes, but it can easily take much longer if your team is inexperienced or uncomfortable with the task.
In well-designed steerable tables, individual wheels fail in a safe mode that allows them to spin freely, keeping the line running until a more convenient shutdown window. The latest modular designs provide options that are easy to service because they’re built from simple and lightweight modules that can be swapped in less than five minutes by a single operator, with no special tools required.
Safety
Pop-up sorters have multiple pinch points, which not only make them challenging to maintain but potentially dangerous to operators. Steerable tables eliminate these hazards, along with O-belts and other components that could trap fingers or loose clothing.
Steering a Course for the Future
Steerable wheel tables are not a stopgap; they mark a durable shift in sortation design. By combining precise, wheel‑level control with electric actuation, they expand what a single unit can do: divert at variable angles, singulate, and manipulate a wider mix of parcels, from soft mailers to bulky irregulars, while safely raising guaranteed throughput. Just as important, they reduce the operational drag that comes with pneumatics: installation is simpler, maintenance windows are shorter, and fail‑safe wheel behavior helps keep lines running instead of shutting down.
As software control and predictive maintenance mature, steerable tables will enable tighter item spacing and higher line rates without increasing machine speed, letting operators add capacity within the same footprint. For facilities under pressure to process more SKUs with fewer stoppages and less risk, the calculus is changing. Steerable wheel tables aren’t a trend to watch; they’re a new baseline for flexible, high‑performance sortation, and they’re ready for scale today.
