Importance
of Total Solutions in Material
Handling today:
It is clear and everyone is aware that business has grown very competitive. Twice clear is that the intensity of competition would grow fiercer than retard. Free trade is in and government protection is out. As more and more countries fall by WTO guidelines, international businesses head for a level playing field. Entities built on strong fundamentals may survive and the rest fade failing to meet the demand. Organizations now sail across boundaries and explore for business, as their erstwhile markets show signs of opening up for more players. To remain in fray - today's managers need to seriously look at areas, which influence major dimensions of competitiveness - Cost, Quality and Delivery.
One such area, which addresses all the above and is found to contribute to a large extent is Material Handling. Arguably, this area for long has been ignored and accorded low priority when budgets and business plans are scripted. In spite of the general awareness that a planned and optimized material handling system is a fundamental necessity to be competitive, the area has been on the backburner for sometime now. Optimized material handling systems not just benefit in controlling spiraling costs but also help in substantial reduction of space required to store, inventory, improvements in productivity and efficiency, improvements in quality and reduction in injuries all increasing the overall productivity.
In the domestic scene, Material handling generally remains a low priority activity and it is rare that this important subject receives attention in a holistic manner. Material handling systems are unplanned, rigid and mostly work as fire fighting tools. This trend has evolved over the years primarily due to factors like
Looking over the vast variety and range of equipments available today, one might wonder if its humanly possible to select just the right equipment to best meet a specific set of requirements. Equipments or solutions are easily bought in bits and pieces and from time to time to meet requirements as and when they crop up. And decisions taken in hurry may prove wrong and costly, Returns for investment are low, payback periods extended and eventually the end consumer forced to pay for the mistake, Therefore a more rational and logical approach would be to find answers for at least some of the following
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Are you acquainted with the principles of material handling and do you apply them in practice in day today work?
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In your operation have you ever checked the material handling labour to the total labour? Is the ratio static or is it improving as a result of your efforts?
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In the stores in your plant have you ever checked the ratio of the cubic capacity of the area occupied by materials in relation to the total useable capacity? Is the ratio static or has it improved as a result of your efforts?
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Can you walk around your plant and find materials being placed on the floor only to be picked up again later on?
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How much is the cost of damaged material and finished goods due to handling?
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How many man-hours are being lost as a result of back strains, damaged hands and feet due to poor handling methods?
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Can you still find instances of heavy loads being lifted pushed or pulled by more than one person that could be moved by one man with suitable mechanical aid?
Naturally an experienced hand could draw upon his experience to answer these questions. But unique and dynamic situations require a far fetching and a farsighted solution to above questions. The answer may probably lie in the concept of TOTAL SOLUTIONS IN MATERIAL HANDLING (TSMH). There have been many attempts in recent past to define TSMH. But all basically converge to - TSMH is an integrated solution encompassing all the areas of material handling taking into consideration the available infrastructure required application and ensuring compatibility between various equipment, solutions and services thereby enabling a smooth and efficient flow.
Simply to put it, TSMH aims at a complete and a holistic treatment of material handling at any given location. The focus is more on understanding the system requirements for today and for a specified period in the future. .
The benefits of using TSMH approach would be many in common and many unique. The major ones are
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Overall decrease in costs
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Optimized investments in material handling.
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Good returns on investment
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Shorter payback periods
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Maintenance of only required inventory.
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Maximum utilization of space & resources
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Efficient utilization of man power.
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Sharp decrease in cost of recruitment and training
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Increased uptime of equipments
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Higher safety and improvement in quality
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One point sourcing.
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Flexibility for future expansions
Above all TSMH enables the user to focus on their core competencies.
The TSMH should ultimately aim at outsourcing of all activities related to flow and handling of materials to a service provider who is competent in it.
In practice, very few service providers are actually competent and conversant to offer TSMH. The scope of service should however include
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Infrastructure and resource audits
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Expansion and diversification assessments
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Physical, qualitative and quantitative assessment of materials
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Material flow maps.
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Bottle neck analysis.
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Priority areas definition and determination
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Pilot area identification for implementation and analysis.
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Techno-commercial analysis of required Material handling equipment & solutions
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Recommendations and Implementation
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Changed situation analysis feedback
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Phase wise transition management
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Orientation and training
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Outsourcing the complete material handling function
In a recently reported TSMH feat, the user claims to have achieved
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A 400% increase in storage capacity from 1.5 lakh units to 6 lakh units now.
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Mechanized warehouse requiring only 15 people to earlier 40.
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Vastly improvised throughput of the warehouse
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Flexibility for interchanging amongst the stored units
Summing it up, TSMH is exhaustive, comprehensive and resourceful. However it is a must and quintessential that focus of the activity should remain on competence barometers - cost, quality and delivery models. The results should be convincing and clear. The customer should be rest assured of no surprises for years to come. After all, material handling accounts for over 25% of all employees, 55% of all factory space and 87% of all production lines. A vast and an interesting potential to build your business competency.
