5 Ways to Squeeze Cost from Material Handling
Moving parts and inventory within your plant and warehouse represent a significant cost to operations. By re-thinking how you make these moves, you can create a more efficient process and thus reduce labor costs while improving safety to people and products. Here’s how…
1. Configure assembly stations to work from parts loaded on carts
Parts delivery on carts can reduce the amount of “touches” required to get items from the market (stores) to the point of use. It allows quicker replenishment cycles and results in less WIP inventory on the production floor.
This material handling approach is used by a large manufacturer of locomotive engines. It has eliminated 150 forklift moves a day and significantly reduced assembly line inventory. Assembly team efficiency has improved because people are no longer waiting for forklifts to deliver parts.
2. Reduce material transport time and labor with trains of carts.
Carts offer tremendous flexibility in the movement of material through the plant and warehouse. However, the larger benefit comes from the amount of dunnage which can be carried in a single trip. Consider a traditional forklift which typically carries one pallet at a time. A forklift must make four trips to move the materials displayed below. However in this picture, one tugger pulls four carts of dunnage. This significantly reduces material handling labor costs and replenishment times.
3. Reduce use of forklifts to reduce ownership costs. The total cost of ownership of a tugger and two 3-cart trains is 60% less than the cost of ownership for one forklift. This takes into consideration items such as purchase costs, maintenance expense, energy use and operator certification costs.
4. Improve usability of key bulk materials. Carts make it easy for a single person to move bulk materials. In the example below, up to 1,000 lbs of material can be moved with less than 40lbs. push effort (breakaway). This application is used by one manufacturer to manually position multiple drums of fluid needed for machining centers into tight areas. Trains of drums, with 2 – 5 carts per train, move quickly throughout the plant as opposed to fork trucks with drum clamps moving only 1 or 2 drums at a time.
5. Expand cart flexibility and improve fleet management with custom “presentation uppers” on standard cart bases. Modifying standard carts to hold custom part presentation uppers on the decks allows handling of special or unusual components without the cost of a completely custom cart. By unbolting the upper assembly, carts can be returned to standard duty at anytime. Cart replacement items such as wheels, towbars, hitches and floor locks are all standard.
If you have any questions about these configurations or other ideas for material handling cost reductions, call us at 440-943-4111 to learn more about getting started.
Larry Tyler
President, K-Tec
Where materials flow by design
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Tough economics drive material handling process changes
 No surprise; customers tell us that trimming operational costs is becoming their top priority.
Embracing lean material handling with carts and tuggers is a smart way to produce quick returns with minimal disruption to operations.
A few tips to get your programs rolling quickly:
1. Tuggers and carts can be managed on the same fleet contract as forklifts through local distribution.
2. Standard cart models are available in flat, rotational or roller deck designs on a no charge demo test program from your local distributors.
See more justification and ROI points for carts and tugger configurations
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