Would Automation Pay for Your Business? Try CCL’s Free Project Planner
Could conveyors or automation improve your operation—and how do you decide where to start? CCL’s free Plan My Automation tool helps you turn a handling problem into a clear project brief and explore a business case using your own figures. No registration is required.
Start with the problem you want to solve
You do not need a finished specification to start a conversation. Perhaps operators spend time carrying products between workstations, packing queues build up during busy periods, pallets interrupt the flow of materials, or older machine controls make production difficult to manage.
The planner guides you through six starting points: reducing manual handling, improving packing flow, moving pallets and heavy loads, connecting floors or buildings, upgrading machine controls, and increasing production output.
Build your brief in four steps
1. Choose your challenge. Select the improvement that matters most to your operation.
2. Describe your process. Add what you handle, product dimensions and weight, required output, available space and any important constraints. You can include up to two photos in your local report.
3. Explore the business case. Enter your own assumptions for staff time, working days, labour cost, potential time reduction, investment and running costs. Leave figures blank if you do not know them yet.
4. Review your plan. See a suggested starting approach and conservative, expected and optimistic scenarios. Download or print your brief, or use the email option to prepare a summary for CCL.
Time saved is not automatically money saved
Automation can release staff time for other useful work. That creates capacity, but it does not always reduce the payroll or produce a cash saving. Our planner separates the value of time released from the portion you expect to turn into real cash savings.
Illustrative example—not a CCL quotation or promised result: a task uses eight staff-hours per day over 250 days per year, at a loaded labour cost of £20 per hour. An assumed 50% time reduction releases 1,000 staff-hours, representing £20,000 of annual capacity value.
If staff remain employed and those hours are redeployed, that £20,000 is not automatically a cash saving. If only 25% becomes an actual avoided cost, the annual cash benefit is £5,000 before additional running costs. With an assumed £20,000 investment and no other benefits or running costs, simple payback would be four years. Change the assumptions to reflect your operation.
The planner is a starting point for discussion. It does not replace a detailed investment appraisal, engineering assessment or quotation. Suitability, performance, price and delivery must be confirmed through CCL’s engineering review.
Useful for conveyor projects and controls upgrades
A project may start with a single conveyor linking two workstations, a pallet transfer, an improved packing flow or a controls upgrade. It may also involve several processes working together. Recording the product, route, throughput and constraints first helps us discuss the right scope with you.
Include details such as access for cleaning and maintenance, changes in height, existing machinery interfaces, and whether production must continue during installation. These points help shape the next engineering conversation.
What happens to your answers and photos?
Your answers and selected photos stay in the current browser tab until you choose to download or share them. Photos are not automatically uploaded to CCL or analysed by AI. Reloading clears the brief, so download it before leaving if you want to keep it.
The email option opens your email application with a summary; it does not automatically submit an enquiry. Attach your downloaded report and any photos you want CCL to review, then send your email.
Try Plan My Automation
Start with one process you would like to improve. Build your free brief, explore your assumptions and share the result with CCL when you are ready to discuss the next step.
Questions before you start planning
Do I need to know which conveyor to choose?
No. Start with the product, its size and weight, where it needs to go and your required output. Describe the handling problem and CCL can assess the equipment and controls needed.
Can I use the planner without an investment budget?
Yes. You can still prepare a useful project brief. Leave unknown financial inputs blank; a meaningful payback estimate needs an investment figure and realistic cash benefits.
Can it help with existing equipment?
Yes. Choose the relevant challenge and explain what you already have, where delays occur and which machines need to work together. CCL will need to review the existing equipment and interfaces before confirming an upgrade.
How do I ask CCL to review my project?
Download your plan before leaving the planner. You can email it to sales@central-conveyors.co.uk, or use our enquiry form to describe the project and tell us you have a planner report available. The form does not automatically receive your planner answers.
Explore the systems behind your plan
See how CCL connects handling processes with complete conveyor systems, coordinates equipment through factory automation, and supports machine integration with control panels and PLC controls.
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