A wide variety of material handling equipment has been developed to meet with the requirement of a wide range of storage materials. Some of the these equipment can be fabricated locally. We shall deal here with most commonly used storage equipment.
The selection of equipment for an organisation depends upon the type of material handled. Commonly used equipment in a store house are of two types : (a) hand operated, and (b) power driven equipment. Here we are discussing hand operated material handling equipment only.
A. Hand Operated Material Handling Equipment
Material handing involves moving, packing and storing articles in any form. Such equipment are as follows
1. Hand Barrow. It comprises a frame which is provided with short shafts. It is used by two or more men for carrying load from one place to another.
2. Wheel Barrow. It is a shallow box with shafts and wheels and is used for movement of small parts within the store.
3. Sack Truck or Two Wheel Truck: It is generally used for moving sacks containing loose parts or granular materials. It comprises two wheels and a frame.
4. Hand Trolley. It can have three or four wheels. It is,worked by a hand lever.
5. Sliding Wheel Trucks. Sliding wheel box trucks built to carry loose parts are made with wooden or steel.
6. Lift Truck. Hand operated lifting trucks are adopted for running beneath stillages on which parts are loaded; a backward pull on the handle raises the platform by means of linkages and enables the loaded stillages to be wheeled away. Hand operated trucks are also available. These are fitted with a platform which can be raised to a height of about 1.3. m. by means of a handle which is attached to the frame work of the truck.
7. Pallet Trucks. These are very similar to stillage trucks the only difference being that they are fitted with forks instead of platform and are meant to handle pallets and stillages.
8. Stillage Trucks. These consists of wheeled platforms managed by a draw-bar and are fitted with a small hydraulic unit actuated by pumping the draw-bar to raise or lower the platform. The trucks platform when lowered is run in between the legs of the stillage; the platform is raised and the truck complete with load is taken away.
Stillage Truck. 9. Hand Stacker. It consists of a vertical frame work of angle iron carrying a platform which can be raised or lowered for stacking or unstacking.
10. Pulley Blocks. This is a geared pulley system fixed to an overhead beam and fitted with a lifting hook at the end of a chain. A separate endless chain is used to operate the mechanism. Blocks are not fast in operation but are suitable where the need for a heavy with loads even up to 10 tonnes, but the heavier the load, the slower the lift.
11. Monorails. A monorail is a single’ l’ section rail fixed overhead and hearing small wheeled trolleys which run on the rails. From the trolleys, loads can be suspended and then moved by hand along the rail to their appropriate destination. Monorails are often used in conjunction with pulley blocks or handling heavy loads out of or into vehicles in receipts or dispatch trays.
12. Chutes. A chute is wooden or metal trough inclined at such an angle that articles will slide down when placed upon it. Chutes (shoots) used for transporting stores from upper to lowerfloors, but they are convenient only for loose materials, robust packages or other goods not liable to damage.
13. Roller Conveyors. These are made of a metal frame work hearing horizontal rollers spaced at intervals, and the goods to be conveyed are pushed along the top of the rollers. Conveyors, will transport between floors in the same way as chutes, and can also be used for horizontal movement at or above floor level. They can be built up in portable sections and rearranged as required.
Roller conveyors are generally used for fairly heavy packaged goods. In many storehouses, a large proportion of the items in stock are binned or racked by hand or with manually operated trucks or trolleys. Shelves and racks should be arranged back to back as far as possible to save space and travelling time and gang ways need be wide enough only for pedestrians With small trucks.
