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Material Handling Equipments

Material handling (MH) equipment encompasses a vast array of tools, vehicles, storage systems, and appliances used for moving, storing, protecting, and controlling materials. The choice of equipment depends heavily on the factors discussed in Section 4.4. Equipment can be broadly classified based on the path it takes or its primary function.

A. Classification by Path Flexibility:

  • 1. Fixed Path Equipment:
    • Characteristics: Moves materials along a single, predetermined route. Offers high efficiency and capacity for continuous or high-volume flow between fixed points, but lacks flexibility. Installation is often permanent or semi-permanent.
    • Examples:
      • Conveyors: (Belt, Roller, Wheel, Screw, Chain, Slat, Bucket, Pneumatic) - Used widely for transporting bulk materials (coal, grain), discrete items (boxes, packages), or assemblies along production lines. Think baggage handling systems at Indian airports or assembly lines in electronics factories.
      • Monorails / Overhead Conveyors: Loads hang from trolleys on an overhead track. Good for utilizing vertical space and bypassing floor congestion. Used in automotive paint shops.
      • Chutes: Use gravity to move items downwards between levels. Simple, low cost.
      • Pipelines: For fluid or gas transport. Essential in oil & gas, chemical industries.
      • Lifts / Elevators: Standard vertical transport between floors.
  • 2. Variable Path Equipment:
    • Characteristics: Can travel over various routes within a defined area, providing high flexibility for intermittent flows, diverse destinations, and changing needs. Not fixed to a specific path.
    • Examples:
      • Industrial Trucks: Forklifts (various types like counterbalance, reach, VNA), Pallet Trucks (manual/powered), Platform Trucks, Tow Tractors. The workhorses of warehousing and general material movement. Seen everywhere from small Indian SMEs to large distribution centers.
      • Cranes (Overhead & Mobile): Bridge, Gantry, Jib cranes provide flexible lifting/movement within their operating area. Mobile cranes offer location flexibility. Essential in steel plants (like SAIL or JSW), construction sites, and ports.
      • Hoists: Lifting devices used independently or with cranes/monorails.
      • Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs): Driverless vehicles for automated transport, following guides (wires, lasers, tape). Used in modern warehouses (e.g., Delhivery, Ecom Express hubs) and flexible manufacturing systems.
      • Industrial Robots: Used for precise, repetitive handling tasks like palletizing, machine loading/unloading. Increasingly adopted in Indian manufacturing for efficiency and quality.

B. Classification by Function (Alternative View):

  1. Transport Equipment: Moves materials between locations (e.g., Conveyors, Trucks, Cranes, AGVs).
  2. Positioning Equipment: Handles material at a single location for manipulation or feeding into a process (e.g., Hoists, Balancers, Manipulators, Industrial Robots at workstations).
  3. Unit Load Formation Equipment: Used to restrict materials so they maintain integrity when handled as a single object (e.g., Pallets, Skids, Bins, Totes, Cartons, Bags). Palletizers can automate this.
  4. Storage Equipment: Used for holding materials over time (e.g., Racking systems - selective, drive-in, flow-through; Shelving; Mezzanines; Automated Storage/Retrieval Systems - AS/RS).
  5. Identification & Control Equipment: Used to collect and communicate information for tracking material flow (e.g., Barcode scanners, RFID tags/readers, Warehouse Management Systems - WMS).
  • Indian Example: ITC Limited, with its diverse businesses (FMCG, Agri, Paperboards), uses a wide spectrum of MH equipment. Bulk grain handling at Agri Business division might use screw conveyors and bucket elevators (Fixed Path). Cigarette manufacturing involves high-speed automated conveyors and robotic arms (Fixed/Positioning). Distribution centers for FMCG products rely heavily on forklifts and pallet trucks (Variable Path) for handling pallets and cartons (Unit Load/Containers) stored in racking systems (Storage), tracked via barcode scanners and WMS (Identification/Control).

The selection process involves choosing the most appropriate equipment from these categories based on the specific needs analysis discussed previously.

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