Most conveyor projects get split three ways: one company sells the steel, another writes the controls, a third installs it. When the line won't hold rate, everyone points at everyone else. We do all of it.
Sunshine State Automation is a Florida-based conveyor systems integrator that designs, fabricates, installs, programs, commissions, repairs and supports MDR conveyor and sortation systems for distribution centers and manufacturers throughout Florida and nationwide. Based in North Florida, with direct service throughout Gainesville, Ocala, Jacksonville, Lake City, Orlando, Tampa and statewide, and nationwide project and support coverage.
Greenfield or a new line in an existing building. Layout and zone design, fabricated steel, MDR hardware, controls, install and commissioning as one scope.
Scope a new systemAdding lanes, extending transport, or bolting sortation onto what you already run. Tied into the existing controls so the whole line still behaves as one system.
Plan an expansionConvert lineshaft or belt zones to MDR, or take over an MDR system that was never commissioned properly and make it hold rate.
Talk through a retrofitMany facilities are left with partially completed or unreliable systems. We specialize in bringing them into production fast, built so your maintenance team can actually support them.
Most vendors stay vague about which parts of a conveyor project they actually perform. Here is the whole sequence, each step named, including the one step we currently buy.
Zone and lane layout scoped against your real rates, product mix and building constraints, so you get a system sized for what actually runs through it rather than a catalog configuration. Throughput is won or lost here, before any steel gets cut.
In HouseEvery frame, curve, merge, transfer, divert and support detailed to dimension, so the shop builds what the layout actually needs instead of a close approximation of it.
In HouseWe model the bed, derive the flat patterns, and send cut-ready files to a local shop that lasers and forms them. All bolted construction, powder coated to any RAL color, then assembled and wired by us as a complete 10 foot bed. On site it gets stood up on legs.
Cut & Formed Locally How we build it, step by step →Motorized rollers, driver cards, power supplies and pre-configured replacement zones, factory direct rather than through a distributor markup, for our systems and for the ones you already run. We are NDW's US service partner, so this hardware comes to us factory direct.
NDW, Factory Direct See the full MDR detail →Control panels, zone wiring and field devices built and documented so your electricians and maintenance team can work on them later. Allen-Bradley ControlLogix and CompactLogix, ZPA logic, dynamic gapping and diagnostics written and simulated before anyone drives to your site. Never subcontracted.
In HouseWe set it, wire it, tune it until it holds rate, document it, and train your maintenance team on it. Then you have one number to call when something changes, instead of three vendors pointing at each other.
In HouseTwo of those six steps decide whether your line holds rate: the controls and the commissioning. Those are the two we never hand to anyone else. Cutting and forming are processes you can buy well from a hundred good shops, and we will tell you exactly which one does ours. The engineering that decides what to cut, and the logic that keeps 80 cartons a minute singulated and correctly gapped, are not for sale anywhere. Those are ours.
The normal conveyor experience is a purchase order, ten weeks of quiet, and then a truck. We run projects the other way around, and we built the system that makes it happen instead of relying on someone remembering.
Not notes somebody meant to write up later. A written summary of what was decided, what changed, and who owes what, in your inbox after the call.
Every action item gets an owner and a date, and carries forward meeting to meeting until it closes. When something closes, the record shows what closed it.
Our pricing catalog is corrected against actual hours from finished jobs. The number you get reflects what the work took last time, not a guess padded for comfort.
Nothing reaches you automatically. Every recap and every update is reviewed and approved by a human before it is sent, and all of it stays on our own server.
Those six steps above are how the project is actually tracked, not just how it is described here. When one of them moves, you hear about it from us before you have to ask.
Fewer can make the finished line hold rate on day one. We came up through controls and commissioning, which means the logic, the diagnostics, and the handoffs to your WMS are designed in from the layout stage rather than discovered during startup. That is the difference between a conveyor that is installed and a conveyor that is running.
HMai is our AI-driven conversational HMI for conveyor and sortation systems. Instead of cryptic alarm codes, operators see live system status in plain English, ask the AI questions, and get guided recovery steps that keep production moving.
Ask five vendors where a WCS ends and a WES begins and you'll get five different answers. The industry hides behind vague three-letter labels while your facility just needs orders released, cartons routed, and equipment running.
OIP is our answer: a modular control and execution layer that does the jobs those labels gesture at, taken module by module rather than bought as a suite.
The fragmentation is not an accident of the software market. It is the same fragmentation that breaks conveyor projects. One company sells the steel, another writes the controls, a third supplies the execution software, and when the line will not hold rate every conversation becomes a jurisdiction problem. The integration seam is where the throughput goes.
We are already on both sides of that seam. We design the layout, fabricate the steel, and write the PLC and HMI code that makes the line hold rate. Extending upward into the layer that decides where product goes is a short distance, and it means the software was not written against a specification of your conveyor: it was written by the people who commissioned it. One accountable party, only the modules you need, your system of record left exactly where it is, and one support call answered by someone who stood on the floor during startup. HMai is its operator-facing AI.
Sunshine State Automation was built from hands-on field experience in conveyor controls, sortation systems, commissioning, and production support. We know what it takes to bring a system online, recover a struggling project, troubleshoot under pressure, and support equipment long after startup.
Our focus is practical engineering, clear communication, and controls solutions that hold up in the real world, delivered so maintenance teams can actually use them.
We're also developing next-generation HMI tools that combine live conveyor graphics, alarm context, guided troubleshooting, and operator assistance to help floor teams recover faster and understand exactly what's happening.
Two lanes combined into one continuous stream, in production. Dynamic gapping logic in the PLC sets each release so cartons arrive singulated with the gap the downstream scanner and sorter need, without stopping the line to space them and without an operator babysitting a jam. This is a system we commissioned, running at rate. This merge provides the volume being sorted on the high-speed MDR sorter in the video at the top of this page.
New system, expansion, retrofit, or a line that will not hold rate. Send us what you have, a layout, a sketch, a photo, or just your throughput numbers, and we will come back with a real scope. Controls-only and troubleshooting work welcome too.