Material Handling Systems Expounded - MWI Solutions

To determine what material handling is specified for and what domain it falls under and what are the objectives of material handling systems, we need to initially understand the following i.e. what are the types of material handling systems along with a classification of material handling systems.

Each and everything involved in a product to be manufactured, shipped, outsourced, put on the showroom display, or market for sale go through series of selection of material handling systems. Overall material handling systems and their related stuff falls under the gigantic umbrella of the Supply Chain Management process. To get going on the material handling systems we first need to know how the supply chain works.

To be very precise, the supply chain along with material handling systems ensures efficiency and productivity in the overall consumer and supplier relationship.  Material handling moreover keenly focuses on moving the product after the manufacturing and ensuring the security, reliability of the product till the product is delivered to the customer or moved to the destined place.

All the cycle from the production, manufacturing, delivering, and consuming comes under the banner of the supply chain and whereas all the contrivances and protocols used for the completion of the cycle fall under the whole material handling system thing. This means the supply chain is the route of all the products being handled by the companies all around the globe and the material handling systems on other hand are its helping components that make sure the success of everything from production to delivery.

Material handling is one of the most important parts of logistics operations. The utmost importance inside the domain of material handling is given to the design of the material handling system. This is because the design of the whole material handling system determines how effective and efficient the overall movements of the system are according to the type of product for which they are deployed. The design depicts the overall layout and helps the engineers to develop the tools and pivot points that can maximize the output and minimize the effort as much as they can.

Three basic mechanisms are given full attention while designing a material handling system and that are following:

1.      Unit Load Concept

2.      The In-process handling

3.      Distribution

Unit Load Concept refers to the items being treated as a single component and they are handled, manufactured, shipped, and deployed separately. The scenario is different for the liquid products, gas, or grains in their form but there one big chunk or a piece in bulk is considered as a single unit.

·      In the In-process handling phase weight, height, size, etc. is constituted of the unit defined earlier in the phase. This is mainly relating to the physical movements based on the design partition of the product. The heavy chunks of loads are further divided and carried separately to ensure the safety of the products and the handlers working as well.

·      The distribution phase covers the delivery of the product that is handled as a single bulk component. The distribution phenomena can be way much different for the products according to their size and shipment scenario and are facilitated accordingly.

Material handling systems fundamentally are of two types that are:

1.      Manual Material Handling

Manual type of handling involves physical men and laborers working with their hands ensuring the movement of loads and items in the material handling system.

2.      Automated Material Handling

Automated type of handling is the kind of handling in which industrial equipment and machines are used for handling the products.

The most widely used type is the hybrid one and equipment is used with help of human operators for most of the work.