Material Handling Equipment - Industrial and Systems Engineering

MATERIAL HANDLING EQUIPMENTSelection Problem: Starting from a low level can result in too many possible choices, whilestarting from a high level does not narrow the number of possible choices enough; starting fromthe intermediate level reduces the selection problem to choosing from 15–50 possible types ofMH equipment.The process of MH equipment selection can be decomposed into two stages (see Figure 8):1. Determine Technical Feasibility—select MH equipment types that can satisfy the materialflow requirements from a technological perspective;e.g., a pallet jack is not technically feasible for stacking pallets onto storage racks2. Determine Economic Feasibility—from among the technically feasible equipment types,select the equipment type that is most cost effective given the material handlingrequirements;e.g., while both a pallet jack and pallet truck are technically feasible for long-distancemoves, the pallet truck, while costing more initially, would be more cost effective becauseit can travel faster due the operator’s ability to ride on the truck66