The 10 Principles of Material Handling

If you work in a material handling occupation, it is important that you know the principles of material handling. Material handling comes with a set rule of principles to ensure all material handling is executed deliberately and efficiently.

All material handling workers abide by the following principles, so ensure you revise and understand the importance of these ten points.

The 10 Principles of Material Handling

• Planning Principle

The planning principle states that all material handling operations should be the results of a deliberate plan. The performance objectives, the need of the operation and the functional specification should be defined from the very beginning.

• Standardisation Principle

The standardisation principle of material handling believes that all methods, equipment, controls, and software should be standardised within the limits of achieving the performance objectives. This should not sacrifice the needed flexibility, modularity or throughput.

• Work Principle

The work principle of material handling believes that material handling work should be minimised without hindering productivity or the service level requires for the operation.

• Ergonomic Principle

The capability of humans and limitations should be recognised and respected. This should be considered when designing the material handling tasks and equipment in order to ensure a safe and effective operation.

• Unit Load Principle

This principle of material handling requires all unit loads to be appropriately sized. They should also be configured to achieve the material for and the objectives at each stage in the supply chain.

• Space Utilisation Principle

Space Utilisation requires all available space is used effectively and efficiently.

• System Principle

The system principle states that all material movement and storage activities should be integrated to form a coordinated operational system. This should include the following things.

• Receiving
• Inspection
• Storage
• Production
• Assembly
• Packaging
• Unitising
• Order Selection
• Shipping
• Transportation
• Handling of returns

• Automation Principle

Wherever possible, all material handling operations should be mechanised or automated. This improves operational efficiency, increased responsiveness, improved consistency, predictability and decreases operational costs and/or potentially unsafe manual labor.

• Environmental Principle

The environmental principle of material handling believes that all environmental impact and energy consumption should be considered when designing or selecting alternative equipment and material handling systems.

• Life Cycle Cost Principle

Finally, a thorough economic analysis should account for the entire lifecycle of all material handling equipment and resulting systems.

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