The transfer of commodities and materials from one location to another is known as material handling. From production to distribution, it involves safeguarding, storing, and managing the resources. Material handling equipment are employed across various industries. Knowledge of these systems will help you pick suitable material handling systems for your company’s needs. In this material handling guide, we will take you through different material handling types to help you pick the right one for your needs.

Material handling types
Broadly, there are four main types of material handling equipment. Read on to learn about them.

Bulk handling material equipment
It refers to the control, storage, and transportation of materials by bulk in loose form. You can find several examples of this application, such as handling minerals, metal items, liquids, beverages, food, etc. This equipment mainly handles the items when they are loose. One such example is the conveyer belt that helps move the items from one part of the production process to the other. Hoppers and drums might also be employed to funnel these loose items to a stage where they can be more easily packaged or manipulated. While elevators help with vertical conveyance, you can use conveyer belts for vertical transportation.

Some prevalent bulk-handling material equipment include:
Conveyor belts
Hoppers
Reclaimers
Bucket and grain elevators
Stackers

Storage and handling equipment
These are curtailed to the non-automated examples clubbed with the engineered systems. These storage material handling designs help buffer or hold the materials during downtimes or while you are not transporting them. These periods are called temporary pauses during long-term storage or transportation to help with the stock buildup. Typically, storage equipment refers to the racks, shelves, or pallets on which the materials are stacked orderly to await consumption or transportation. Several companies have explored better efficiency possibilities in storage systems by adopting proprietary packaging designs that let the products or the materials of a specific type conserve space while in inventory.

Some examples of storage and handling equipment are:
Stacking frames
Racks
Drawers, bins, and shelves
Pallet inverters
Work assist tooling
Mezzanines

Automated systems
Also known as engineered systems, these material handling systems are designed to be 100% automated. They help with material transportation and storage. Instead of being a single piece of equipment, the automated systems usually refer to a couple of units. One of the prevalent kinds of such systems is automated storage and retrieval systems. These systems are large and have racks, aisles, and shelves. A shuttle is equipment that looks like a cherry picker that helps pick the material and settle it on the system. Sometimes, the operator manually employs the shuttle to pick up the items and place them on them. However, the process can be completely computerized and automated.

A significant pro associated with automated storage and retrieval systems is that you can annex it to the facility’s computer network. The connection simplifies how the company monitors its stock control. You can integrate the automated storage and retrieval systems with other stages of the facility’s process for automation.

Some other primary automated systems include:
Automated guided vehicles
Conveyer systems
Robotic delivery systems

Industrial trucks and forklifts
It covers the broad category of material handling equipment, but one thing they all have in common is that all these systems help with transportation. You can find industrial trucks and forklifts in a variety of sizes. For instance, you can find equipment large enough to be driven and small enough to be hand-operated.

Broadly, there are two types of industrial trucks – non-stacking and stacking trucks. The former is employed solely for transportation, whereas the latter helps load and stack products. Typically, industrial trucks come with attachments like forks or insertable flat surfaces that simplify transportation. These attachments go under the pallets for easy and quick picking.

Industrial trucks help haul the materials via powered or manual means. The powered trucks typically have a cab, simplifying how the operators move the heavy materials. Ideally, you will have to push the power-assisted industrial cabs into position, but they can still carry materials via controls. In addition, some high-end industrial trucks can be automated, employing predefined pathways or optical sensors to move along the warehouse floor.

A few of the popular kinds of industrial trucks include:
Pallet and platform trucks
Hand trucks
Walking stackers
Order pickers
Pallet jacks
Side loaders

Bottom line
Every warehouse is unique and demands unique equipment, but we hope this material handling guide helps you with the right choice. Contact a systems integrator or a material handling integrator if you wish to update your warehouse system and do not know which equipment works best for your needs. They can help integrate and engineer tools customized to meet your specifications.