From automated guided vehicles (AGVs) to sorting robots, computer-controlled machines are becoming an important part of material storage and flow. To ensure you receive usable raw materials from your suppliers and deliver satisfactory products to your customers, you need to handle materials carefully at every step of the process. Distribution refers to the supply of finished goods to retailers and wholesalers. A lot of material is damaged during transport due to poor packaging and storage. Proper material handling not only affects the movement of the material, but also ensures placing orders in the right quantity, using the material at the right time, keeping the right amount of inventory, and moving material with better techniques and care. In early handling systems, goods were handled discontinuously as individual units. These early methods treated the three basic stages of handling—collecting materials, manufacturing and distributing products—as separate steps, and materials were moved into individual units rather than large units. If you want to optimize your logistics process, you need to implement robust material handling systems throughout your organization. Industrial trucks range from the simplest trolleys and wheelbarrows to a special variety of sophisticated cranes.
Wagons and forklifts are used to lift bulky or heavy loads, often in conjunction with trailers that transport material on a specific route for distribution. Artificially or gravity-driven conveyor belts and monorails are also widely used for the transfer of materials over short distances within a factory, as well as for sorting and assembly line production. Containers, ranging from crates and containers to truck-sized proportions, help reduce material and part handling and maximize efficiency by transporting them in large units. Frames are also used, with or without pallets, to optimize the use of vertical storage space. This is important because a large portion of manufacturing costs are handling costs. Production costs can be reduced to an exceptional level through proper handling. The handling methods are based on the principles you will learn in this section. Here are the principles: Manual handling refers to the use of a worker`s hands to move individual containers by lifting, lowering, filling, emptying or transporting. It can expose workers to physical hazards that can lead to injury: a high percentage of the more than half a million cases of musculoskeletal disorders reported in the United States.
Each year stems from manual handling and often involves strains and sprains on a person`s lower back, shoulders and upper limbs. [12] Another important concern of an organization is to minimize material waste. Sometimes material is wasted due to poor storage, or sometimes it is wasted when transported from one place to another. Piece loads can be used both for in-process handling and for distribution (incoming goods, storage and shipping). Unit load design involves determining the type, size, weight, and configuration of the load. load handling equipment and procedures; and methods of shaping (or construction) and load reduction. For in-process handling, quantities must not exceed the batch size of work-in-progress parts. Large production batches (to increase the use of bottleneck activities) can be divided into smaller transfer batches for handling, with each transfer batch containing one or more piece-piece loads, and small unit loads can be combined into a larger transfer batch to allow for more efficient transport. [8] Let`s discover the different types of handling in chronological order of their introduction into the industry. Handling, name: the loading, unloading and movement of goods, as in a factory or warehouse, in particular with the help of mechanical devices.
(1) Materials that can be transported in large quantities in liquid or gaseous form, such as oil and natural gas, are most often transported by pipeline from mine sites to storage tanks and refineries, and then to distribution facilities. Pipe networks are also used to transport sludge, which is a solid (like coal) suspended in water. The compression of natural gas and the use of large tankers have also facilitated the transport of these materials over long distances and on major waterways. Materials handled in large quantities that cannot flow through pipelines are limited to transportation, trucking and rail. These raw materials include unprocessed minerals and building materials. A third type of material consists of machine parts and other manufactured goods that can be loosely transported to assembly lines or dealerships. Automated material handling has several advantages. The first advantage is that it increases the speed of production work. Robots work 100 times faster than a human worker. In addition, automation also reduces the likelihood of workplace accidents. Workers are not obliged to perform physical work in cruel working conditions. You can sit comfortably and control robots that do all the physical work.
The ultimate goal is worker safety.