Material handling can become a production problem as it adds little value to the product, consumes a portion of the production budget. During a generic production and distribution process, the material’s transport, storage, control, and protection operations.

This fundamental activity is good to analyze, develop, and deepen both for manufacturing companies and those in the distribution sector.

Characteristics of material handling Equipment

The handling of materials, given its importance within the production processes and particularly in logistics, includes a whole series of activities that, if correctly optimized, allow great benefits in terms of timing, workforce, and overall costs.

These are the main activities that fall within the material handling process:

• management of information relating to goods ;
• handling of raw materials;
• the passage of the product being processed between one machine and another, between one department and another;
• the picking inside the warehouse;
• the activity of palletizers and stacker cranes;
• machinery for wrapping and packaging ;

Company logistics involves the use of different types of vehicles and technological Equipment dedicated to handling materials, whether they are semi-finished products, components, or finished products: we are talking about material handling equipment.

Innovating these systems, from the point of view of mechanical Equipment and IT updating, is essential to make sure your company a technological advantage that has now become necessary, both in terms of efficiency and cost reduction.

Innovating material handling means better managing information relating to handling loads, using data as a critical element to optimize warehouse processes and costs, improving the overall yield of the entire logistics system. So let’s see the main areas of intervention where it is possible to enhance material handling performance.

Material Handling Equipment: tips and methods to reduce costs

Optimizing warehouse management to eliminate excess charges means intervening in the entire material handling process, from design to final control, passing through daily operations. On the other hand, the improvement in handling can therefore translate into various activities such as:

• review of the material handling equipment of the warehouse
• modernization of the material handling equipment
• Reviewing the material handling equipment is necessary for companies that still conceive of material handling as a series of distinct, rigid, and sequential operational phases, an approach now outdated in favor of more efficient integrated handling systems.

This material handling includes considerations of:

• Movement
• Place
• Weather
• Space
• Quantity.

Material handling must make sure that parts, raw materials, work-in-process, finished products, and supplies are periodically moved from one location to another. On the other hand, each process operation requires materials and supplies on time at a particular point; efficient materials handling ensures that materials will be delivered at the right time and place and the correct quantity.

1. Eliminate distances.

If this is not possible, transport distances should be kept as short as possible because shorter movements require less time and money than long movements and help us make production more efficient.

2. Keep moving.

If this is not possible, the time spent in the terminals of a route should be reduced as much as possible.

3. Use simple patterns.

Crossings and other patterns that lead to congestion must be reduced since production becomes lighter with the reduction of corners, taking into account as the facilities allow.

These days, we focus on some of the benefits of using material handling equipment in the manufacturing process. You can choose the best material handling types of Equipment from Hovair.com.

4. Security

We’ll start with something that should be pretty obvious: Lightweight teams tend to be safer than their heavier counterparts. Unsurprisingly, heavy Equipment can offer a much higher chance of serious injury.

5. Ease of use

Material Handling Equipment is almost always more straightforward to use than heavy Equipment. Many heavy kits require employees to undergo specialized training or a license before they can use the Equipment. The more explicit and more flexible solutions, on the other hand, are easier to use and easier to work with. This means that your employees are more likely to perform their tasks simply and easily with minimal training.