Material handling involves moving materials efficiently through the production process. Its goals include reducing costs, maintaining quality, and promoting safety and productivity. Material handling equipment includes transport equipment like forklifts and conveyors, as well as storage systems like racks and bins. When designing a material handling system, key considerations include the material characteristics, required flow rates, and plant layout. Common types of material handling equipment move materials between fixed points, over limited areas, or across large areas of a facility. Proper equipment selection and an integrated system design can help optimize material flow.

2. Material Handling
• Material handling is the function of moving
the right material to the right place in the
right time, in the right amount, in sequence,
and in the right condition to minimize
production cost.
– The cost of MH estimates 20-25 of total
manufacturing labor cost in the United States [The
Material Handling Industry of America (MHIA)]

3. Goals of Material Handling
• The primary goal is to reduce unit costs of
production
• Maintain or improve product quality, reduce damage of materials
• Promote safety and improve working conditions
• Promote productivity
– material should flow in a straight line
– use gravity! It is free power
– move more material at one time
– mechanize material handling
– automate material handling

4. Goals of Material Handling
• Promote increased use of facilities
• Reduce tare weight (dead weight)
• Control inventory

5. Overview of Material Handling
Equipment
• Material handling equipment includes:
– Transport Equipment: industrial trucks,
Automated Guided vehicles (AGVs), monorails,
conveyors, cranes and hoists.
– Storage Systems: bulk storage, rack systems,
shelving and bins, drawer storage, automated
storage systems.
– Unitizing Equipment: palletizers
– Identification and Tracking systems

6. Considerations in Material Handling
System Design
1. Material Characteristics
Category Measures
Physical state
Size
Weight
Shape
Condition
Safety risk and risk of
damage
Solid, liquid, or gas
Volume; length, width, height
Weight per piece, weight per unit volume
Long and flat, round, square, etc.
Hot, cold, wet, etc.
Explosive, flammable, toxic; fragile, etc.

7. Considerations …cont.
2. Flow rate
Manual handling
Hand trucks
Powered trucks
Unit load AGV
Conveyors Conveyors
AGV trainHigh
Low
LongShort Move Distance
Quantity of
material
moved

8. Considerations …cont.
3. Plant Layout
Layout Type Characteristics Typical MH Equipment
Fixed – position
Process
Product
Large product size, low
production rate
Variation in product and
processing, low and medium
production rates
Limited product variety, high
production rate
Cranes, hoists, industrial trucks
Hand trucks, forklift trucks,
AGVs
Conveyors for product flow,
trucks to deliver components to
stations.

9. Material Handling Equipment
1. Between fixed points over a fixed path
1. Belt conveyor
2. Roller conveyor
3. Chute conveyor
4. Slat conveyor
5. Screw conveyor
6. Chain conveyor
7. Overhead monorail conveyor
8. Trolley conveyor
9. Wheel conveyor
10.Tow conveyor
11.Bucket conveyor
12.Cart-on-track conveyor
13.Pneumatic tube conveyor

10. Material Handling Equipment
2. Over limited areas
 Hoists
 Overhead cranes
 Hydraulic scissors lift
3. Over large areas
 Handcart/truck
 Tier platform truck
 Hand lift truck / pallet jack
 Power-driven hand truck
 Power-driven platform truck
 Forklift truck
 Narrow aisle truck
 Tractor-trailer truck
 Material lift
 Drum truck
 Drum lifter
 Dolly
 Automated guided vehicle system

11. Belt conveyor

12. Belt conveyor

13. Roller conveyor

14. Chute conveyor

15. Chute conveyor

16. Slat conveyor

17. Screw conveyor

18. Screw conveyor

19. Chain conveyor

20. Chain conveyor

21. Overhead monorail conveyor

22. Overhead monorail conveyor

23. Trolley conveyor

24. Wheel conveyor

25. Wheel conveyor

26. Tow conveyor

27. Tow conveyor

28. Bucket conveyor

29. Bucket conveyor

30. Cart-on-track conveyor

31. Pneumatic tube conveyor

32. Pneumatic tube conveyor

33. Hoists

34. Overhead cranes

35. Hydraulic scissors lift

36. Handcart/truck

37. Tier platform truck

38. Hand lift truck / pallet jack

39. Power-driven hand truck

40. Power-driven platform truck

41. Forklift truck

42. Narrow aisle truck

43. Tractor-trailer truck

44. Material lift

45. Drum truck

46. Drum lifter

47. Drum lifter

48. Dolly

49. Pallet

50. Box

51. Tote Pan

52. Skid

53. 20 Principles of Material Handling
1.The Planning Principle
– Large-scale material handling projects usually
require a team approach.
– Material handling planning considers every move,
every storage need, and any delay in order to
minimize production costs.
– The plan should reflect the strategic objectives of
the organization as well as the more immediate
needs.

54. 2.The systems principle: MH and storage activities
should be fully integrated to form a coordinated, operational
system that spans receiving, inspection, storage, production,
assembly, …, shipping, and the handling of returns.
– Information flow and physical material flow
should be integrated and treated as concurrent
activities.
– Methods should be provided for easily identifying
materials and products, for determining their
location and status within facilities and within the
supply chain.

55. 3. Simplification principle
– simplify handling by reducing, eliminating, or
combining unnecessary movement and/or
equipment.
– Four questions to ask to simplify any job:
• Can this job be eliminated?
• If we can’t eliminate, can we combine movements
to reduce cost? (unit load concept)
• If we can’t eliminate or combine, can we rearrange
the operations to reduce the travel distance?
• If we can’t do any of the above, can we simplify?

56. 4. Gravity principle
– Utilize gravity to move material whenever
practical.
5.Space utilization principle
– The better we use our building cube, the less
space we need to buy or rent.
– Racks, mezzanines, and overhead conveyors
are a few examples that promote this goal.

57. 6.Unit load principle
– Unit loads should be appropriately sized and
configured at each stage of the supply chain.
– The most common unit load is the pallet
• cardboard pallets
• plastic pallets
• wooden pallets
• steel skids
– pp 164 - 169

58. 8.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.
– ASRS is a perfect example.

59. 10. Equipment selection principle
– Why? What? Where? When? How? Who?
– If we answer these questions about each
move, the solution will become evident.
– Look at pp 160-161.
11. The standardization principle
– standardize handling methods as well as types and
sizes of handling equipment
– too many sizes and brands of equipment results in
higher operational cost.
– A fewer sizes of carton will simplify the storage.

60. 13.

61. 12. The dead weight principle
– Try to reduce the ratio of equipment weight to product weight.
Don’t buy equipment that is bigger than necessary.
– Reduce tare weight and save money.
13. The maintenance principle
– Plan for preventive maintenance and scheduled repairs of all
handling equipment.
– Pallets and storage facilities need repair too.
14. The capacity principle
– use handling equipment to help achieve desired production
capacity
– i.e. material handling equipment can help to maximize
production equipment utilization.

62. Example
• A punch press can cycle every 0.03 minute, but our time
standard for manually loading and unloading this press is
only 300 pieces per hour.
Press capacity = 60 min / 0.03 = 2000 pieces/hr
Utilization = 300 / 2000 = 15%
• Should we buy a new press?
• If we can purchase a coil-feeding material handling
system, we could approach 100% press utilization.

63. Material Handling Equipment

64. Material Handling Equipment