The Material Handling Blog

The good news is that this long talked about concept has been proven within the last few years. You can hardly be in business anymore without being impacted by the need to deliver only what your customer needs. The days of shipping excess are over and everyone is looking to eliminate waste in their supply chain process.

Lean manufacturing is a common production practice. It considers the spending of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be a wasteful practice, and thus a target for elimination. Wasteful practices are those practices that do not add value to our customers. When considering each process within your facility it becomes necessary to consider those goods and services that you, as a customer, are willing to pay for and those goods and services that you do not see value in...

I was recently at a client location and I asked them what their number one operational problem was. The director of distribution didn’t miss a beat. “Inventory Accuracy,” was his reply.

This article will discuss some of the options available to the designer for Unit Load AS/RS Systems. Mini and Micro Load systems will be discussed in the next article.

Supply Chain Consultant Marvin Logan debates which is better: Pick-to-Light or Pick-to-Voice.

Since the introduction of AS/R systems in the United States, the technology has evolved in a number of directions that has resulted in greater capability, and a large diversity in the rules for its application. Needless to say, in the last 40 years or so, these systems have become both Hero and Villain to the enterprises they have served. Success and horror stories are constantly referenced, and depending on which end of the spectrum your counsel is from, you may be influenced to make a decision focused on the wrong issues or for the wrong reasons...

There are basic rules of the road for designing a conveyor system. Here are a few.

All living things grow if they're healthy. The same principle is true for a healthy organization of people.

An Engineering Study is an inexpensive and efficient way to add temporary expertise to help study a distribution or manufacturing issue and come up with an engineered solution. At Bastian Solutions, we identify and measure several key performance indicators that, in most situations, management doesn’t have the time or the experienced staff required to...

For those of you in the material handling or manufacturing industry, there is a good chance that you are working with a system that is quickly becoming outdated. With today's idea of "buy today, ship tomorrow" online shopping mentality, your system could easily become overwhelmed, especially if downsizing has resulted from the recent economy. But how do you even start to improve?...

In a down economy, businesses start to maintain their conveyors instead of replacing them. As the economy starts to squeeze the wallet, new conveyor sales start to fall but spare parts sales, according to Bob Trebilcock from Modern Material Handling magazine, could potentially increase 25% this year...