Free Sample
The Complete Handbook of Material Handling
A Practical Reference for Buyers, Engineers, and Operations Professionals
by Alumigogo Books
Chapter 1: Understanding Material Handling
Material handling is the movement, storage, control, and protection of materials, goods, and products throughout the process of their manufacture, distribution, consumption, or disposal. This is a vast and somewhat clinical-sounding definition, but its implications are very concrete. It is not just about a forklift in a warehouse. It is about the entire physical infrastructure of industry: the conveyor that moves a washing machine through a paint booth, the pallet racking from which an auto parts store clerk pulls a brake rotor, the hoist that lifts a 300-kilogram gearbox onto a milling machine, and the internal packaging that prevents a shipment of LCD panels from cracking in transit.
Every physical object that is not in the exact place it needs to be when it needs to be there is a liability. From the moment a raw material exits a mine, a farm, or a refinery, to the moment a finished product is consumed or scrapped, it is in a state of handling. The discipline of material handling is the practice of minimizing the cost and time associated with that state. To do this effectively, one must stop thinking about a warehouse as a place where things sit, and start thinking about it as a machine that processes velocity and volume. The racks, the floors, the doors, and the equipment are all components of that machine.
The Real-World Cost of Poor Handling
Consider a typical receiving dock at a regional distribution center. A 26-meter trailer arrives