Material Handling in Manufacturing
Facilities
• Designing of material handling
• Unit load design
• Types of material handler
• Selection criteria
• Productivity and cost of material handling
• Assignment
Material handling definition
Material Handling importance
• In recent years, there has been a tremendous growth of material handling
technology and equipment types; robots, automated guided vehicles (AGV),
electrified monorail systems (EMS), high-rise storage retrieval systems,
computerized picking, systems and computer controlled conveyor systems.
• Material handling systems, have been accepted as an integral part of today's
manufacturing systems and are increasingly playing an important part in the
productivity of the plant.
• we see a corresponding increase in deployment of integrated material
handling environments with sophisticated planning and operational rules to
achieve Just-In-Time and Agile/Lean manufacturing systems.
Goals of MH
Material handling equation
Material handling
chart
Principles of MH
Although there are no definite “rules” that can be followed when designing an effective
MHS, the following “Ten Principles of Material Handling,” represent principles by
practitioners and students of material handling:
• Planning Principle. All MH should be the result of a deliberate plan where the needs,
performance objectives, and functional specification of the proposed methods are
completely defined at the outset.
• Standardization Principle. MH methods, equipment, controls and software should
be standardized within the limits of achieving overall performance objectives and
without sacrificing needed flexibility, modularity, and throughput.
• Work Principle. MH work (defined as material flow multiplied by the distance
moved) should be minimized without sacrificing productivity or the level of service
required of the operation.
• Ergonomic Principle. Human capabilities and limitations must be recognized and
respected in the design of MH tasks and equipment to ensure safe and effective
operations.
• Unit Load Principle. Unit loads shall be appropriately sized and configured in a way
that achieves the material flow and inventory objectives at each stage in the supply
chain.
Cont…
• Space Utilization Principle. Effective and efficient use must be made of all
available (cubic) space.
• System Principle. Material movement and storage activities should be fully
integrated to form a coordinated, operational system which spans receiving,
inspection, storage, production, assembly, packaging, unitizing, order selection,
shipping, and transportation, and the handling of returns.
• Automation Principle. MH operations should be mechanized and/or automated
where feasible to improve operational efficiency, increase responsiveness,
improve consistency and predictability, decrease operating costs, and to
eliminate repetitive or potentially unsafe manual labor.
• Environmental Principle. Environmental impact and energy consumption should
be considered as criteria when designing or selecting alternative equipment and
MHS.
• Life Cycle Cost Principle. A thorough economic analysis should account for the
entire life cycle of all MHE and resulting systems.
MH System Classification
• Mechanized
• Semi-automated
• Automated
• Information-directed
MH System Equipments
• Containers and unitizing equipment
• Material transport equipment
• Storage and retrieval equipment
• Automatic identification and communication
equipment
I. Containers and unitizing equipment
• Containers
To facilitate the movement and storage of loose
items
• Unitizers
Equipment for a formation of a unit load
Unit Load Design
• Unit load –amount of material that can be
moved as a single mass between two
locations
• Primary advantage of using unit loads is the
capability of handling more items at a time
and reducing the number of trips, handling
cost, loading and unloading times, and
product damage.
• Unit load and JIT
Unit load design Determination of the load size
• Size (volume and weight) of the unit load has major impact on the
specification and operation of the material handling
• The Optimal Unit Load is the quantity where the system idle time, WIP and
transportation cost are minimized
Unit Load Design
Cont…
Unit Load Design – Efficiency of containers
Unit load design Efficiency of containers
Unit load design Pallets
Unit load design
II. Material transport equipment
Conveyors
