INTRODUCTION OF MATERIAL HANDLING
Material handling is a very important area of concern for industrial engineers. This is due to following reasons:
1. More than 90% of the time in material spends on shop-floor is either in waiting or for being transported. This is a non-value added activity. Nearly 20-30% of this non-value added time is consumed in material handling. Therefore, efficient handling will save some of this non-value added time.
2. Safe handling of material is important in the plant. This reduces wastage, breakage, loss, scrapes, etc.
3. Efficient material handling is needed for less congestion, timely delivery and reduced idle time of machine due to non-availability of material.
4. Cost-efficient material handling is an important issue. Material movement usually accounts for 10 to 90% of total factory cost, whose average is, as per one estimate, about 25%. Therefore, a careful study of alternative modes of material transportation is very important.
5. Better material handling is helpful in good house-keeping.
Material handling is needed in the entire supply-chain of the manufacturing system. From supplier to the in-coming store of the plant, raw material or sub-assemblies are shipped. Sometimes subcontractors supply semi-finished items. For this, road transport or rail-transport is needed. At the plant level, raw material or semi-finished items are transported to the various machines. Movement of material is not only along the floor, but it may be vertical (i.e., against/along gravity) also.
It is the art and science involving movement, packaging and storing of materials in any form by means of gravity, manual effort or power-activated machinery.
— American Materials Handling Society