Material handling could be described as the movement, protection, storage and control of materials and products throughout manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, consumption and disposal. Material handling incorporates a wide range of manual, semi-automated and automated equipment and systems that support logistics and make the supply chain work.
It often involves short-distance movement within a building or between a building and some mode of transportation.
1. What is material handling?
Material handling can use a range of equipment and incorporates things like the protection, storage, and control of materials throughout their manufacturing, warehousing and distribution phases. Material handling equipment might include transport equipment, positioning equipment, unit load formation equipment, and storage equipment. These might all be used in the handing of materials or products from manufacturing to delivery.
It is an important part of both manufacturing and logistics, and its operators transport various goods in a variety of industrial settings that might include everything from moving construction materials around building sites to moving goods onto ships or into rail containers.
2. Material handling solutions
Material handling solutions facilitate the flow of goods from the shop floor to the retail outlets where customers pick them up and buy them. They are the people and equipment that move products from the assembly line to the marketplace. They help today’s complex supply chain work and help to provide solutions that optimize distribution and production operations.
Effective material handling solutions can lower operating costs for almost any manufacturer or distributor. They can help increase storage capacity because they keep the goods and products in motion throughout the supply chain. They can assist in improving employee and overall productivity, cycle times, and throughput capacity.
And they can help improve customer service and customer satisfaction with any good or product for companies in any industry.
3. How businesses handle materials
Material handling solutions can be applied throughout any organization and can move or store any box, pallet, or product. They can be as simple or complex as required. They might include a range of equipment that is specific and specified for any company including all types of storage equipment, conveyor and materials transport systems, and automation systems. Material handling solutions combine material handling equipment and technology with process expertise to implement solutions to meet any business goals.
4. Specific material handling solutions
There are a number of specific material handling solutions that should be noted. They include warehouse storage that provides the industrial and warehouse and pallet racking products that could be the solution for any business and its operations. Using mezzanines effectively is another way that material handling solutions can help by utilizing all of this space safely and effectively, while allowing access to anything you need to store. Automated material handling solutions can be used as well to automate any warehouse operation in order to find the best way to plan and automate your material handling and storage needs.
5. Material handling in warehouses
Material handling solutions even can help companies utilize used warehouse equipment, racks, forklifts, pallet racking instead of buying a brand-new material handling solution. They help ensure that the design and layout of any business is optimized so that the very best handling solutions can be put into operation. Conveyors and other industrial systems might also be part of a material handling solution and these can be simple gravity conveyors or sophisticated conveyor systems to reduce operational costs by eliminating manual transport.
Warehouse and project management systems can also be built into material handling solutions to utilize the right technology and software to increase productivity and create more efficiency and reliability from beginning to end.
