Yoyoyoyo!



I found this super interesting website, and this company is called "Grainger". This website is similar to 'Amazon.com' which sells many different types of products.



Totally eye-opening! It sells anything that relates to "Material Handling Equipment" ranging from cabinets... all the way to wheels and casters. I was really surprised to see so many types of MHE. Haha! so you should go check it out!



But there were certain areas we can't get in because we do not have an account??! But don't you worry! We still can browse this website! Haha.



This Grainger website looks something like this:

It makes me see that there are really alot of things I should see and learn more. Material Handling Equipment is definitely a generalized term for all sorts of equipment, ranging from handling a box to handling huge containers... TOO MANY THINGS TO HANDLE LAH! hahaha..

That's all for now.. Stay tuned alright! =)

Don't mess with this big machine called "QUAY CRANE" because:

1. They are extremely expensive type of MHE. Costs Hundred thousands to a million dollars worth for each quay crane.




2. It has a 60 ton twinlift capacity 60 meters of boomlength.
   



3. Requires super courageous and responsible personnel staff to handle each crane because it is extremely difficult and stressful.

From this research, i have decided to look further into such industrial huge equipment for sea freight and vessel port related stuff: This website name 'Avtron' provides crane and material handling solutions. But this company does not just stop at sea logistics solutions, it also provides aerospace and new types of sytems for their customer!

Another website name "High Tech. Solutions" which offers their original system such as 'SeeCrane Container Recognition System'. It was indeed something new that I've learnt about MHE. Too many to specify.

This picture above shows on their "Crane Viewer Sample". As quoted by what is shown at the website, the Crane viewer sample application is provided as a source code for simplifying integrations.

Pallet Jack (Hand Pallet Truck)

http://doughertyequipment.com/pallet_jacks.shtml

Pallet Jacks are manual material handling equipments used for horizontal movements in the warehouse. It is used in warehouses where forklifts are not a suitable solution for moving pallets around as it can be maneuvered in small aisles. It lifts pallets to a ranged height of 2 7/8inch – 7 3/4inch which will allow the user to pull or push the pallets. Moving the pallet jack around is made easier generally with the help of power drive accumulator which is activated when the handle is pulled back.

The downside of it is that it is unable to store or remove pallets without the help of other equipment when goods are not at ground level.

It is a crane which uses a mast; single/twin (for heavy loads) with forks or platform to handle unit loads. It can be considered as "forklifts on a rail".

The crane moves on a track in an aisle of the warehouse.


The fork can be raised or lowered to any level of a storage rack and can be extended into the rack to store or retrieve products on either side of the crane aisle.

It can either be controlled remotely or by operator in a cab on the mast.

Each stacker crane is manufactured with safety precautionary such as an elevator-type free-fall safety device which is enabled in the event of slack in the chain, a rack mounted above the head as well as the screen-guarding on the front of the stacker to ensure that the operator is protected from being struck by any falling parts.

These stacker cranes are mostly used in automated warehouse known as Automated Storage and Retrieval System (AS/RS) and fully operated using electrical system.

Advantages:

• Ability to cater to high-rise applications where the racks are more than 50 feet high. Thus through this high rack heights, extra storage space are made available.
  
• The stacker crane uses proprietary speed controllers and mechanisms to improve performance and speed up the handling of goods.
  
• Additional space freed up through the absence of passageways and working areas normally required for forklift operations. This enables the company to make use of the additional spaces for other intended operation purposes which is beneficial for them.
• Avoid hazardous working-environment for employees.
  
• High cubic capacity utilization rate and throughput efficiency in the automated warehouse.
• There would be an overall low in maintenance and operating costs incurred by the company.
  
• Allows servicing of several aisles by one crane.
  
• Staffs are more productive as waiting time for forklifts to be available is eliminated soon as they are being replaced by stacker cranes.
  
• The company does not necessarily require skilled labour for operating the stacker crane.
  
• The warehouse can be easily expanded by just adding new rack and crane rail to meet with growing needs of the company.
  

http://www.gaffey.com/html/stackcon.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/crane-machine

www.ise.ncsu.edu/kay/mhetax/index.htm
http://www.okamura.co.jp/english/product/material/pallet/

Technology has vastly developed and has assist human beings in a variety of areas in the context of logistics.


Warehouses, distribution centre, manufacturing sectors have used technology in one way or another to assist them in operations and cut down a lot on manual processes.

One aspect of material handling currently in the trend in the industry is the use of conveyors to move a product from one location to another within a facility.

This concept of movement has generated various opportunities for the conveyor system to be further developed to enhance internal operations such as order picking process and sorting to routes process.






An example of a typical order flow process which is common in the industry, mainly used in warehousing is as follows:





The boxes or cartons of products come most commonly with barcodes as form of identification of the product information.


There are several forms of conveyor system for material handling in the industry.


In general for order picking purposes, scanners are being placed along various points of the conveyor to allow for tracking of products.


These forms of conveyors are mostly automated roller types where the rollers are electric powered to move the products.


At every scanning station the carton passes, it will be updated into the WMS system.


The cartons will flow to the staging area where these boxes will be palletized either manually or by automation depending on the level of technological investment the company is adopting.


The pallets can be either staged at a particular area before loading or be transferred to a gravity conveyor

where these pallets can flow down a pallet a time to assist loading.

The conveyor system relieves various labour intensive activities like people movement, as movement to carry one carton from the start till end of process might be twice slower than a conveyor system.

Furthermore if the system practices continuous tracking by having readers on the conveyor, updating time manually can be eliminated.

On the whole, productivity of order fulfillment will definitely increase.

In general, order processing is the most critical aspect of warehousing and majority of the total warehousing cost comes from that.

If order processing time can be reduced to half with investment of this material handling equipment, it can lead to significant cost savings in the long run which will translate to profits.

It is really interesting to know about the conveyors and further deepening my understanding on these conveyors. I look forward to blog more about this in awhile!!

There are people who do not know what a forklift is all about,
and it's really funny when i go around asking "what is a forklift?"
they can give me answers like "oh, is it some type of lift that looks like a fork?",
"oh, i think it's just a name for some fork".

Alright, enough said on irrelevant stuff.....

OK!! Here I go about my research on the forklifts:


I have found out that many people misunderstand the fact that this is the only type of forklift:

In which, this is actually called the "4-wheel Counterbalanced Truck".

In terms of forklifts, there are so many shapes and sizes of forklifts...
...all depending on the type of racking system, the space that the warehouse have, the type of goods that the customer handles etc... This word 'Forklift" is way too general to specify a specialised type of truck to handle certain cargo or products.

Let me give u an example using the famous brand called "Crown":


One advantage that Crown have, is specializing in battery-operated type of forklifts and that these machines allows lower energy consumption comparing with other brands, which normally uses diesel-operated type of forklifts.

But in any cases, to operate one of these forklifts, the personnel handling the equipment will require a license to drive it. Therefore, here in Singapore, the PSA(Port of Singapore Authority) has training courses for companies to send their staff for the training in order to obtain forklift licences.

From the next post onwards, each post will look on different types of material handling equipment (in which forklifts are definitely part of MHE).

Ok! stay tuned for the next post by one of our group members!

Swing Reach Trucks
http://www.raymondcorp.com/trucks/truckDetail.cfm?TruckID=5

These reach trucks utilizes the aisles space and minimize the need of isle space to increase storage capacity. Comparing with the conventional reach trucks that requires maneuvering of position within the aisles, this swing reach trucks moves in a single direction and able to pick pallets from racks on both sides.



As shown in the illustration, the swing reach trucks are used especially for Very Narrow Aisles (VNA). Warehouses can shift racks closer to increase storage space provided if they are not static. In addition, productivity for processes like putting away and picking can be done effectively due to the minimal actions required for the retrieving of pallets.

Conventional trucks would have to maneuver to the right or left to load or unload pallet from racks, however, the highlighted reach trucks only require a single movement along the aisle without much turning.

Alright, we shall start off with alittle introduction straightaway!

Never expected to start a blog about an online subject..
but we've decided to choose on Materials Handling Equipment out of the three.
Yes it's MHE!!
Something like this:

A Reach-Truck in a Warehouse

Along the supply chain, no matter what... Materials Handling Equipment would be totally necessary.

Looking at the pictures which i have posted, you can see that the forklifts are actually part of a material handling equipment.

do u understand? yes? no?

Don't worry! We'll be blogging even more after this! haha!

Ahhh.. introduction is done! so let's start blogging properly about the research that we've had!