Material Handling Equipment - Industrial and Systems Engineering

MATERIAL HANDLING EQUIPMENTWorkstations are typically located on the sides of a pair of racks and the S/R machine operatesbetween the racks to move containers to openings in the racks (storage lanes) located next toeach station15(c) Man-on-board AS/RSUsed for in-aisle picking; operator picks from shelves, bins, or drawers withinthe storage structureManual or automatic controlS/R machine is similar to an order picker or turret truck and can sometimesoperate as an industrial truck when outside an aisle, except the S/R is guidedalong a rail when operating in an aisle15(d) Deep-lane AS/RSSimilar to unit load AS/RS, except loads can be stored to greaterdepths in the storage rackA rack-entry vehicle is used to carry loads into the racks fromthe S/R machine, and is controlled by the S/R machineTermed an “automated item retrieval system” whenused to automatically retrieve individual items orcases, with replenishment (storage) taking placemanually from the rear of a flow-through storagelane and items are pushed forward with a rearmountedpusher bar for automatic picking from thefront of the storage laneTable 12 provides a comparison of the different type of storage equipment that can be used forpallet picking. Note that there are approximately two lanes of storage per item:Inventory level per itemLanes per item = 2Storage depth per lane ≈64