The Objectives and Principles of Material Handling

Materials handling is the art and science of moving, packing, storing and protecting of substances in any form until they are brought to further use.

Like any other work materials handling also works on certain principles and objectives. These have been defined and described in details us under:

Standardization principle: When handling large scale of material handling, maintaining a standard is very important. Customization of material as per need can lead to wastage of the material thus resulting in dead stock. This is why the equipment, software and controls should be standardized in a pattern to provide maximum benefit.

Planning Principle: It is imperative to have a definitive plan before executing any work. Hence, the planning principle involves the method and timeline of keeping or moving the material as per demand of the consumer.

Ergonomic principle: Ergonomics is the science that seeks to adapt work or working conditions to suit the abilities of the worker. Therefore, the ergonomic principle works on the objective of understanding the limitations of the manual labor and to ensure that maximum work can be extracted without having to put them in jeopardy.

Work Principle: The main objective of using the work principle is to ensure usage of handling equipment for movement of large-scale products is to minimize the load of work on the manual labor without having to compromise on the quality of the material handling.

Unit Load Principle: While moving and storing the goods it is imperative to know the unit load of the goods so as to ensure that it is appropriately sized and configured in a way which achieves the flow and stock objectives at each stage in the supply chain.

Space Utilization principle: Since one of the prospects of materials handling is storing of goods, the space utilization principle is important aspect to be covered. The space is three-dimensional and is calculated in cubic space to adjust the material without breaking it.

The placement of material should be effective and efficient so as to keep it intact and make space for other products as well.

Environmental Principle: All the machinery required for the accomplishing the task of material handling should be keeping in mind the environment of the storage space.

For example energy consumption should be considered as an environmental factor when performing the routine tasks of material handling. Effective usage of energy ensures least wastage.

System Principle: The objective of the system principle in material handling entails the movement; storage, protection and packing of the material should all work in a synchronized manner to make sure that the workflow is not hindered.