Material handling

Material handling

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  Material Handling Definition: Materialhandling is the movement and storage of material at the lowest possible cost through the use of proper method and equipment. Material handling is the movement, protection, storage and control of materials and products throughout manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, consumption and disposal. Objective • to reduce the unit cost of production • Reduce manufacturing cycle time • Reduce delays, and damage • Promote safety and improve working conditions • Maintain or improve product quality • Promote productivity • Promote increased use of facilities • Control inventory
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  Material Handling SystemEquation
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  Material Handling PlanningChart
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  Handling systems classification •Mechanized • Semi-automated • Automated • Information-directed
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  Material handling equipment 4categories: • Containers and unitizing equipment • Material transport equipment • Storage and retrieval equipment • Automatic identification and communication equipment
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  Material handling principles •Principle 1 - PLANNING PRINCIPLE: All material handling should be the result of a deliberate plan where the needs, performance objectives, and functional specification of the proposed methods are completely defined at the outset. • Principle 2 - STANDARDIZATlON PRINCIPLE: Material handling methods, equipment, controls, and software should be standardized within the limits of achieving overall performance objectives and without sacrificing needed flexibility modularity, and throughput. • Principle 3 - WORK PRINCIPLE: Material handling work should be minimized without sacrificing productivity or the level of service required of the operation.
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  • Principle 4- ERGONOMIC PRINCIPLE: Human capabilities and limitations must be recognized and respected in the design of material handling tasks and equipment to ensure safe and effective operations. • Principle 5 - UNIT LOAD PRINCIPLE: Unit loads shall be appropriately sized and configured in a way which achieves the material flow and inventory objectives at each stage in the supply chain. • Principle 6 - SPACE UTILIZATION PRINCIPLE: Effective and efficient use must be made of all available space. • Principle 7 - SYSTEM PRINCIPLE: Material movement and storage activities should be fully integrated to form a coordinated, operational system that spans receiving, inspection, storage, production, assembly, packaging, unitizing, order selection, shipping, transportation, and the handling of returns.
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  • Principle 8- AUTOMATION PRINCIPLE: Material handling operations should be mechanized and/or automated where feasible to improve operational efficiency, increase responsiveness, improve consistency and predictability, decrease operating costs, and eliminate repetitive or potentially unsafe manual labor. • Principle 9 - ENVIRONMENTAL PRINCIPLE: Environmental impact and energy consumption should be considered as criteria when designing or selecting alternative equipment and material handling systems. • Principle 10 - LIFE CYCLE COST PRINCIPLE: A thorough economic analysis should account for the entire life cycle of all material handling equipment and resulting systems.
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  Automated Guided Vehicle(AGV) • Definition - An AGV is an independently operated vehicle that moves material along defined paths between defined delivery points or stations. Typically the paths are defined by either using wires embedded in the floor or reflecting paint strips on the floor. • Some of the more advanced technologies use laser triangulation or inertial guidance systems on-board the vehicles, with distributed calibration stations for position updating.
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  AGV classification • Driverlesstrains - AGV is a towing vehicle used to tow one or more trailers forming a train between stations. • Pallet trucks - Used to move palletized loads along predetermined routes. Typically, personnel will steer the AGV to the pallet, acquire the pallet, then steer it to the guide-path where the automated guidance system will then move it to its destination. In a sense, it can be thought of as an automated forklift. • Unit load carriers - Move unit loads from from one station to another station. A unit load is a collection of items that is delivered repetitively as a unit.
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  AGV applications • Driverlesstrain operations - Movement of large material quantity over large distances (between buildings, warehouses). • Storage/distribution systems - Uses unit load carriers and pallet trucks to transfer material between stations, sometimes interfacing with other automated systems such as an AS/RS (Automated Storage and Retrieval System). Works well in assembly operations where the unit loads (or kits) can be transferred from a central storage area to assembly sites. • Assembly line operations - AGV’s become part of the assembly operation by transferring material along an assembly line (such as moving an engine block between operational stations) • Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) - AGV’s are used to transfer parts, materials and tooling between the FMS process stations. • Miscellaneous applications - Non-manufacturing applications include the handling of sensitive waste, transportation of material at hospitals, mail transportation.
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  AGV guidance andcontrol • Guidance and control functions: • Vehicle guidance - on-board control system to move the vehicle along pre-defined paths by a feedback loop between the control system and the guide wire (or paint). More modern systems use inertial guidance to move the AGV between calibration stations. In situations where the guide wire or paint is discontinuous, the control system uses dead reckoning to transition these points. • • Traffic control - collision avoidance between multiple AGV’s. The control system is designed with blocking algorithms that use a combination of on-board vehicle sensing and zone control. • • Systems management - programming interfaces and algorithms for moving AGV’s between stations, and for scheduling the movement of multiple AGV’s.