The Material Handling Blog

Those of you in the business of making electricity do what you want it to do have all been there, whether you are an electrician, electrical engineer, or controls engineer you have been in a position where you have unnecessarily beat your head against the wall trying to solve a problem. When it is all said and done you realize that the root cause of the problem could have easily been avoided had you taken a few simple steps up front. From the "School of Hard Knocks," here are a few learned lessons that might be helpful to you.

Few of us have been able to escape the unwanted, but necessary, cost-cutting initiatives of our employers during the past three years of the recession. In the interest of self preservation, we have combed through each line item of the corporate budget looking for hidden treasures to help sustain us until consumer demand returns.

Many material handling projects today include high tech "wizardry" such as robots , Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS) , or Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) . These types of equipment all have their place and serve their function well; however, we can't lose sight of the basic, less heralded, building blocks of a great system. One of these building blocks is a mezzanine .

When Bastian partnered with Blue Arc Engineering to design Bastian Solutions' conveyor, a zero accumulation conveyor, we knew that there would be hundreds of different products that would have to be conveyed. Thus, we manufactured a conveyor that could handle very small products as well as large and heavy boxes on inclines, declines and horizontal conveying applications. We learned a lot from turning modular product development into “Modular Conveyor Development."

Bastian Solutions recognizes that our talented and driven employees are responsible for the success of the company, so we regularly analyze where we need to grow and how we can recruit top candidates.

Writing specification documents and listing requirements is not typically a favorite task for a controls engineer. We’d rather be designing, coding, and debugging. But a well written specification can help a project move along more smoothly and therefore be more enjoyable.

Voice-directed warehousing activities have come a long way since they were first introduced. The biggest physical benefit that generally comes to mind is the ability to remove distractions such as scanning guns and pick lists, freeing both of the operator’s hands to perform work.

Having been in the trenches executing complex automated material handling systems for the last 23 years certain “lessons learned” become etched into my mind. The difference between a great project manager and a mediocre project manager directly impacts: the ability to complete the project on time, overall profitability, and most important customer goodwill... which translates to the future revenue stream with that customer. I would offer the following 10 characteristics of a perfect project manager for your consideration...

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.