Material Handling Technologies

• Material handling is defined as the movement, storage, protection and control of materials through the
manufacturing and distribution process including their consumption and disposal.
• The handling of materials must be performed safely, efficiently, at low cost and in a timely manner,
accurately (the right materials in the right quantities to the right locations), and without damage to the
materials.
• The cost of material handling is a significant portion of the total production cost, estimates averaging
around 20-25% of total manufacturing labor cost in the United States for example.
• The proportion varies depending on the type of production and degree of automation in the material
handling function.
Material Handling Equipments
• A great variety of material handling equipment is available commercially.
• Material handling equipment includes: (1) transport equipment (2) storage systems (3) unitizing
equipment (4) identification and tracking systems.
Material transport equipment
• Material transport includes equipment that is used to move
materials inside a factory, warehouse, or other facility. This
equipment can be divided into the following five categories.
Industrial trucks
• Industrial trucks divide into two types: non-powered and
powered.
• Nonpowered trucks are platforms or containers with wheels
that are pushed or pulled by human workers to move
materials.
• Powered trucks are steered by human workers. They provide
mechanized movement of materials.
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Material transport equipment (continued)
Automated guided vehicles (AGVs)
• They are battery-powered, automatically steered vehicles that
follow defined pathways in the floor. The pathways are
unobtrusive.
• AGVs are used to move unit loads between load and unload
stations in the facility.
• Routing variations are possible, meaning that different loads
move between different stations.
• They are usually interfaced with other systems to achieve full
benefits of integrated automation.

Monorails and other rail guided vehicles

• These are self propelled vehicles that ride on a fixed rail
system that is either on the floor or suspended from the
ceiling.
• The vehicles operate independently and are usually driven by
electric motors that pick up power from an electrified rail.
• Like AGVs, routing variations are possible in rail-guided
vehicle systems.
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Material transport equipment (continued)
Conveyors
• Conveyors constitute a large family of material transport
equipment that are designed to move materials over fixed
paths, generally in large quantities or volumes.
• Examples include roller, belt and tow-line conveyors.
• Conveyors can be powered or nonpowered.
• Powered conveyors are distinguished from other types of
powered material transport equipment in that the mechanical
drive system is built into the fixed path.
• Nonpowered conveyors are activated either by human
workers or by gravity.

Cranes and hoists

• There are handling devices for lifting, lowering, and
transporting materials, often as very heavy loads.
• Hoists accomplish vertical lifting; both manually operated and
powered types are available.
• Cranes provide horizontal travel and generally include one or
more hoists.
 Material Handling Technologies
Material transport equipment (continued)
Storage systems
• Although it is generally desirable to reduce the storage of materials in manufacturing, it seems
unavoidable that raw materials and work-in-process will spend some time being stored, even if only
temporarily.
• And finished products are likely to spend some time in a warehouse or distribution centre before being
delivered to the final customer.
• Accordingly, companies must give consideration to the most appropriate methods for storing materials
and products prior to, during, and after manufacture.
• Storage methods and equipment can be classified as follows:
Bulk storage
• This consists of simply storing materials in an open floor area, generally in pallet loads or other
containers. It requires little or no storage equipment.
Rack systems
• Rack systems are structural frames designed to stack unit loads vertically, thus increasing the vertical
storage efficiency compared to bulk storage.
Shelving and bins
• Steel shelving comes in standard widths, depths, and heights to serve a variety of storage
requirements.
• Shelves can include bins, which are containers for loose items.
Drawer storage
• This storage medium is more costly than shelves, but it is more convenient.
• Finding items stored in shelves can be difficult if the shelf level is too high or too low or too deep.
• Drawers compensate for this by pulling out to reveal their entire contents.
• Drawer storage is generally used for tools, hardware, and other small items.
 Material Handling Technologies
Material transport equipment (continued)
Storage systems (continued)
Automated storage systems
• Automated and semiautomated systems are available to deposit and withdraw items into and from the
storage compartments.
• There are two basic types:
(1) automated storage/retrieval systems, consisting of rack and shelf systems that are accessed by an
automated or mechanized crane, and
(2) carousal systems that rotate storage bins past a stationary load/unload station.

Unitizing equipment
• The term unitizing equipment refers to (1) containers used to hold individual items during handling (2)
equipment used to load and package the containers.
• Containers include pallets, boxes, baskets, barrels, pails, and drums, some of which are shown in
Figure below.
 Material Handling Technologies
Material transport equipment (continued)
Unitizing equipment (continued)
• Although seemingly mundane, this type of equipment is very important for moving materials efficiently
as a unit load, rather than as individual items.
• A given facility must often standardize on a specific type and size of container if it utilizes automatic
transport and / or storage equipment to handle the loads.
• The second category of unitizing equipment, loading and pakaging equipment, includes palletizers,
designed to automatically load cartons onto pallets and shrink-wrap plastic film around them for
shipping.
• Other wrapping and packaging machines are also included in this equipment category, as are
depalletizers, designed to unload cartons from pallets.

Identification and tracking systems

• Material handling must include a means of keeping track of the materials being moved or stored.
• This is usually done by affixing some kind of label to the item, carton, or unit load that uniquely
identifies it.
• The most common label used today consists of bar codes that can be read quickly and automatically by
bar code readers.
• Other types of labels include magnetic stripes and radio frequency tags that are generally capable of
encoding more data than bar codes.
 Material Handling Technologies
Considerations in material handling system design
• Material handling equipment is usually assembled into a system.
• The system must be specified and configured to satisfy the requirements of a particular application.
• Design of the system depends on the materials to be handled, quantities and distances to be moved,
type of production facility served by the handling system, and other factors, including available budget.
• Let us consider these factors that influence the design of the material handling system.
Material characteristics
• For handling purposes, materials can be classified by the physical characteristics presented in the table
below, suggested by a classification scheme of Muthur and Haganas.

• Design of the material handling system must take these factors into account.
• For example, if the material is a liquid and is to be moved in this state over long distances in great
volumes, then a pipeline is probably the appropriate transport means.
• But this handling method would be quite inappropriate for moving a liquid contained in barrels or other
containers.
• Materials in a factory usually consist of solid items: raw materials, parts, and finished or semifinished
poducts.
 Material Handling Technologies
Considerations in material handling system design (continued)
Flow rate, routing and scheduling
• In addition to material characteristics, other factors must be considered in analyzing system
requirements and determining which type of equipment is most appropriate for the application.
• These other factors include: (1) quantities and flow rates of materials to be moved, (2) routing
factors, and (3) scheduling of the moves.
• The amount or quantity of material to be moved affects the type of handling system that should
be installed.
• If large quantities of material must be handled, then a dedicated handling system is appropriate.
• If the quantity of a particular material type is small but there are many different material types to
be moved, then the handling system must be designed to be shared by the various materials
moved.
• The amount of material moved must be considered in the context of time, that is how much
material is moved within a given time period.
• We refer to the amount of material moved per unit time as the flow rate.
• Depending on the form of the material, flow rate is measured in pieces/hr, pallet loads/hr, tons/hr,
ft3/day, or similar units.
• Whether the material must be moved as individual units, in batches, or continuously has an effect
on the selection of handling method.
 Material Handling Technologies
Considerations in material handling system design (continued)
Flow rate, routing and scheduling (continued)
• Routing factors include pickup and drop-off locations, move distances, routing variations, and
conditions that exist along the routes.
• Given that other factors remain constant, handling cost is directly related to the distance of the
move: the longer the distance, the greater the cost.
• Routing variations occur because different materials follow different flow patterns in the factory or
warehouse.
• If these differences exist, material handling system must be flexible enough to deal with them.
• Conditions along the route include floor surface condition, traffic congestion, whether a portion of
the move is outdoors, whether the path is straight line or involves turns and changes in elevation,
and the presence or absence of people along the path.
• All these routing factors affect the design of material transport system.
• Figure below is presented as a rough guide to the selection of material handling equipment for
some of the application characteristics, we have discussed, specifically flow rate and distance
moved.
 Material Handling Technologies
Considerations in material handling system design (continued)
Flow rate, routing and scheduling (continued)
• Scheduling relates to the timing of each individual delivery.
• In production as well as in many other material handling applications, the material must be picked
up and delivered promptly to its proper destination to maintain peak performance and efficiency of
the overall system.
• To the extent required by the application, the handling system must be responsive to this need for
timely pickup and delivery of the items.
• Rush jobs increase material handling cost.
• Scheduling urgency is often mitigated by providing space for buffer stocks of materials at pickup
and drop-off points.
• This allows a “float” of materials to exist in the system, thus reducing the pressure on the handling
system for immediate response to a delivery request.
 Material Handling Technologies

Considerations in material handling system design (continued)

Plant layout
• Plant layout is important in the design of a material handling system.
• In the case of a new facility, the design of the handling system should be considered part of the
layout design.
• In this way, there is greater opportunity to create a layout that optimizes material flow in the
building and utilizes the most appropriate type of handling system.
• In the case of an existing facility, there is less flexibility in the design of a handling system.
• The present arrangement of departments and equipment in the building usually limits the
attainment of optimum flow patterns.
• The plant layout should provide the following data for use in the design of handling system: total
area of the facility and areas within specific departments in the plant, arrangement of equipment
in the layout, locations where material must be picked up (load stations) and delivered (unload
stations), possible routes between these locations, and distances traveled.
• Opportunities to combine deliveries and potential locations in the layout where congestion might
occur must be considered.
• Each of these factors affect the flow patterns and selection of material handling equipment.
• Different material handling systems are generally required for the different layout types.
 Material Handling Technologies
Considerations in material handling system design (continued)
Plant layout (continued)
• There are three types of plant layout in manufacturing: fixed-position layout, process layout and
product layout.
• If the product is large and heavy, and therefore difficult to move in the factory, it typically remains
in a single location, atleast during its final assembly.
• Workers and processing equipment are brought to the product rather than moving the product to
the equipment.
• This type of layout is referred to as fixed-position layout, shown in Figure below.

• In the pure situation, the product remains in a single location during its entire fabrication.
• Examples of such products include ships, aircraft, railway locomotives, and heavy machinery.
• In actual practice, these items are usually built in large modules at single locations, and then the
completed modules are brought together for final assembly using large capacity cranes.
 Material Handling Technologies
Considerations in material handling system design (continued)
Plant layout (continued)
• The individual components that comprise these large products are often made in factories that
have a process layout, in which the equipment is arranged according to the function or type.
• The lathes are in one department, the milling machines are in another departments, and so on as
in Figure below.

• Different parts, each requiring a different operation sequence, are routed through the
departments in the particular order needed for their processing, usually in batches.
• The process layout is noted for their flexibility; it can accommodate a great variety of alternative
operation sequences for different part configurations.
• Its disadvantage is that the machinery and methods to produce a part are not designed for high
efficiency.
• Much material handling is required to move parts between departments, so in-process inventory
can be high.
 Material Handling Technologies
Considerations in material handling system design (continued)
Plant layout (continued)
• The mass production is characterized by a high demand rate for a single product, and the
production facility is dedicated to the manufacture of that product.
• The multiple workstations required to complete the product are arranged in a sequence and the
parts or assemblies are physically moved through the sequence to complete the product.
• The workstations consist of production machines and / or workers equipped with special tools.
• The collection of stations is designed specifically for the product to maximize efficiency.
• The layout is called product layout, and the workstations are arranged into one long line, as in
Figure below, or in a series of connected line segments.

• The work is usually moved between stations by powered conveyor.

• At each station, a small amount of the total work is completed on each unit of product.
• The most common example of such kind of flow line production is the assembly line, associated
with products such as cars and household appliances.
 Material Handling Technologies
Considerations in material handling system design (continued)
Plant layout (continued)
• In a fixed position layout, the product is large and heavy and therefore remains in a single
location during most of its fabrication.
• Heavy components and subassemblies must be moved to the product.
• Handling systems used for these moves in fixed-position layouts are large and often mobile.
• Cranes, hoists, and trucks are common in this situation.
• In process layouts, a variety of different products are manufactured in small or medium batch
sizes.
• The handling system must be flexible to deal with variations.
• Considerable work-in-process is usually one of the characteristics of batch production, and the
material handling systems must be capable of accommodating this inventory.
• Hand trucks and fork lift trucks (for moving pallet loads of parts) are commonly used in process
type layouts.
• Factory applications of AGV systems are growing because they represent a versatile means of
handling the different load configurations in medium and low volume production.
• Work-in-progress is often stored on the factory floor near the next scheduled machines.
• More systematic ways of managing in-process inventory include automated storage systems.
 Material Handling Technologies
Considerations in material handling system design (continued)
Plant layout (continued)
• Finally a product layout involves production of a standard or nearly identical types of product in
relatively high quantities.
• Final assembly plant for cars, trucks, and appliances are usually designed as product layouts.
• The transport system that moves the product is typically characterized as fixed route,
mechanized, and capable of large flow rates.
• It sometimes serves as a storage area for work-in-process to reduce the effects of downtime
between production areas along the line of product flow.
• Conveyor systems are common in product layouts.
• Delivery of component parts to the various assembly workstations along the flow path is
accomplished by trucks and similar unit load vehicles.
• Table summarizes the characteristics of the three conventional layout types and the kinds of
material handling equipment usually associated with each layout type.
 Material Handling Technologies
Automated Storage / Retrieval Systems
• It is a storage system that performs storage and
retrieval operations with speed and accuracy
under a defined degree of automation.
• An aisle of an AS/RS that handles and stores unit
loads on pallets is shown.
• It consists of one or more storage aisles,
each serviced by a storage/retrieval (S/R)
machine (cranes).
• The aisles have storage racks made of
steel for holding the stored materials.
• The S/R machines are used to deliver
materials to the storage racks and to
retrieve materials from racks.
• To perform these transactions, the S/R
machine must be capable of horizontal
and vertical travel to align its carriage
(which carries the load) with the storage
compartment in the rack structure.
• The S/R machine consists of a rigid mast on which is mounted an elevator system for vertical motion of the
carriage.
• Wheels are attached at the base of the mast to permit horizontal travel along a rail system that runs the
length of the aisle.
• A parallel rail at top of the storage structure is used to maintain alignment of the mast and the carriage with
respect to the rack structure.
 Material Handling Technologies
Automated Storage / Retrieval Systems (continued)
 Material Handling Technologies
Automated Storage / Retrieval Systems (continued)

Shuttle transfer mechanism

S/R machine of S/R machine
 Material Handling Technologies
Automated Storage / Retrieval Systems (continued)
• Each AS/RS aisle has one or more input / output stations called pickup-and-deposit (P&D) stations, where
materials are delivered into the storage system or moved out of the system.
• P&D stations are manually operated or interfaced to some form of automated transport system such as a
conveyor (e.g. roller) or a forklift truck or an AGV.
• The carriage of the S/R machine includes a shuttle transfer
mechanism to move loads into and from their storage
compartments and also to transfer from S/R machine to
P&D station or other material handling interface with
AS/RS.
• The shuttle transfer is accomplished by any of the several
mechanisms including forks (for pallet loads) and friction
devices for flat bottom tote pans.
• To accomplish the desired motions of the S/R machine,
three drive systems are required: horizontal movement of
the mast, vertical movement of the carriage, and shuttle
transfer between the carriage and a storage compartment.
• Modern S/R machines are available with horizontal speeds up to 200 m/min along the aisle and vertical or
lift speeds up to around 50 m/min. These speeds determine the time required for the carriage to travel from
the P&D station to a particular location in the storage aisle.
• The storage modules are the unit load containers of the stored material including pallets, steel wire baskets
and containers, plastic tote pans and special drawers.
• The storage modules are made to a standard size that can be handled automatically by the carriage shuttle
of the S/R machine and also designed to fit in the storage compartments of the rack structure.
 Material Handling Technologies
Automated Storage / Retrieval Systems (continued)

Man-on-board AS/RS.

Unit Load AS/RS Miniload AS/RS

 Material Handling Technologies
Automated Storage / Retrieval Systems (continued)

Automated item retrieval system

 Material Handling Technologies
Automated Storage / Retrieval Systems (continued)

Vertical lift storage modules

 Material Handling Technologies
Automated Storage / Retrieval Systems (continued)
Engineering Analysis of Storage Systems
Sizing the AS/RS Rack Structure
• The total storage capacity of one storage aisle depends
on how many storage compartments are arranged
horizontally and vertically in the aisle in the Figure.

• This can be expressed as

where ny= no. of load compartments

along the length of the aisle, nz= no. of
load compartments that make up the
height of the aisle.
The constant 2 accounts for the fact that
loads are contained on both sides of the
aisle.
 Material Handling Technologies
Automated Storage / Retrieval Systems (continued)
Engineering Analysis of Storage Systems (continued)
Sizing the AS/RS Rack Structure (continued)
• If we assume a standard size compartment (to accept a standard size unit load), then the compartment
dimensions facing the aisle must be larger than the unit load dimensions.
• Let x and y be the depth and width dimensions of a unit load (e.g. a standard pallet size) and z be the
height of the unit load.
• The width, length and height of the rack structure of the AS/RS aisle are related to the unit load dimensions
and the number of compartments as follows:

where W, L and H are the width, length and height of one aisle of the AS/RS rack structure (mm); x, y and z
are the dimensions of the unit load (mm); and a, b, c are the allowances designed into each storage
compartment to provide clearance for the unit load and to account for the size of the supporting beams in
the rack structure (mm).
• For the case of unit loads contained on standard pallets, recommended values for the allowances are:
a = 150 mm, b = 200 mm and c = 250 mm.
• For an AS/RS with multiple aisles, W is simply multiplied with the number of aisles to obtain the overall width of the
storage system.
• The rack structure is built above the floor level by 300 – 600 mm, and the length of the AS/RS extends beyond the
rack structure to provide space for the P&D station.
 Material Handling Technologies
Automated Storage / Retrieval Systems (continued)
Engineering Analysis of Storage Systems (continued)

AS/RS Throughput
• System throughput is defined as the hourly rate of S/R transactions that the storage system can
perform.
• A transaction involves depositing a load into storage or retrieving a load from storage.
• Either of these transactions alone is accomplished in a single command cycle.
• A dual command cycle accomplishes both transaction types in one cycle; since this reduces travel
time per transaction, throughput is increased by using dual command cycles.

• The following are the assumptions:

1) randomized storage of loads in the AS/RS (i.e. any compartment in the storage aisle is equally
likely to be selected for a transaction)
2) storage compartments of equal size
3) the P&D station located at the base and end of the aisle
4) constant horizontal and vertical speeds of the S/R machine
5) simultaneous horizontal and vertical travel.
 Material Handling Technologies
Automated Storage / Retrieval Systems (continued)
Engineering Analysis of Storage Systems (continued)
AS/RS Throughput (continued)
• For a single command cycle, the load to be entered or retrieved is assumed to be located at the center of
the rack structure as shown below.
• Thus the S/R machine must travel half the length and half the height of the AS/RS, and it must return the
same distance. The single command cycle time can therefore be expressed by

where Tcs=cycle time of a single command (min/cycle), L = length of the AS/RS rack structure (m), vy =
velocity of the S/R machine along the length of the AS/RS (m/min), H = height of the rack structure (m), vz =
velocity of the S/R machine in the vertical direction of the AS/RS (m/min), and Tpd = pick-up-and-deposit
time (min). Two P&D times are required per cycle, representing load transfers to and from the S/R machine.
 Material Handling Technologies
Automated Storage / Retrieval Systems (continued)
Engineering Analysis of Storage Systems (continued)
AS/RS Throughput (continued)
• For a dual command cycle, the S/R machine is assumed to travel to
the center of the rack structure to deposit a load and then it travels
to ¾ the length and height of the AS/RS to retrieve a load as
shown.
• Thus the total distance traveled by the S/R machine is ¾ the length
of the rack structure and back.
• In this case, cycle time is given by

where Tcd=cycle time for a dual command cycle (min/cycle).

• System throughput depends on the relative numbers of single and dual command cycles performed by the
system.
• Let Rcs = number of single command cycles performed per hour, and Rcd = number of dual command cycles
per hour at a specified or assumed utilization level.
• We can formulate the following equation for the amounts of time spent in performing single and dual
command cycles per hour:

where U = system utilization during the hour. The right hand side of the equation gives the total number of
minutes of operation per hour.
 Material Handling Technologies
Automated Storage / Retrieval Systems (continued)
Engineering Analysis of Storage Systems (continued)
AS/RS Throughput (continued)
• To solve the above equation, the relative portions of Rcs and Rcd must be determined or assumptions about
these proportions must be made.
• When solved, the total hourly cycle rate is given by

where Rc = total S/R cycle rate (cycles / hour).

• Note that the total number of storage and retrieval transactions per hour will be greater than this value
unless Rcd = 0, since there are two transactions accomplished in each command cycle.
• Let Rt = total number of transactions performed per hour, then

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