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Material Handling
Published in Sunderesh S. Heragu, Facilities Design, 2022
A unit load is one that can be stored or moved as a single entity at one time, regardless of the number of individual items that make up the load. The key aspects of this principle areLess effort and work are required to collect and move many individual items as a single load than to move many items one at a time.Load size and composition may change as material and product move through various stages of manufacturing and the resulting distribution channels.Large unit loads are common both before manufacturing as raw materials and after manufacturing as finished goods.During manufacturing, smaller unit loads, sometimes just one item, yield less in-process inventory and shorter item throughput times.Smaller unit loads are consistent with manufacturing strategies that embrace operational objectives such as flexibility, continuous flow, and lean manufacturing.
Material Handling Systems
Published in Susmita Bandyopadhyay, Production and Operations Analysis, 2019
Unit loads are in general, carried in pallets, skid, or containers. A pallet is a flat structure used for transportation purpose. Pallets can be general purpose pallets or special purpose pallets or extendable pallets. The various types of pallet containers include pallet bins, pallet boxes, and pallet crates. Special types of pallet containers include wood or wire constructions, or corner interlock construction. Household movement and storage are generally done by pallet containers. Pallets can be designed in one of the two ways—block design and stringer design. A general look of a pallet is shown in Figure 14.1. In block design, cylindrical post separates the top deck from the bottom deck and both parallel and perpendicular stringers are present that supports efficient material handling. In stringer design, wood components are present throughout the length of the pallet. The top deck is fastened to the top edge.
What Is Intermodal Freight Transport?
Published in Lowe FCILT David, Intermodal Freight Transport, 2006
Such systems provide greater flexibility for the customer, who may be either the consignor or the consignee, by allowing goods to be loaded or unloaded at his premises in the conventional manner without changing the current practices applied to his domestic or local traffic. It also assures his piece of mind if, having seen his freight securely stowed and sealed in an intermodal-loading unit, he knows that it will not be disturbed again until it reaches its final destination, unless it is to comprise part of a groupage load. The principal benefits of unit-load intermodalism is that it can provide:lower transit costs over long journeys;potentially faster delivery times in certain circumstances (these obviously need to be individually assessed for particular cases);a reduction in road congestion (a major beneficial factor in these modern times);a more environmentally acceptable solution to congestion and related problems (such as the emission of noise and fumes, the damage caused to the built environment by vibration and so on);reduced consumption of fossil fuels since the long-haul section of the route is more fuel efficient;safer transit for some dangerous products.
Physical Internet-enabled customised furniture delivery in the metropolitan areas: digitalisation, optimisation and case study
Published in International Journal of Production Research, 2021
Hao Luo, Siyu Tian, Xiang T. R. Kong
Another portion is the functional design of the critical PI components. PI facilities and material handling designs were addressed by Montreuil et al. (2015). Meller et al. (2012, 2014) and Ballot and Montreuil (2016) also focused on road-rail bimodal hubs, semi-trailer transit centres, and road-based cross-docking hubs, respectively. Zhong et al. (2017) demonstrated a system that utilises PI to improve shop floor manufacturing. Lin et al. (2014) introduced a mathematical model that selects the requisite number of modular containers required to pack a certain number of products to optimise space. The results indicated that using standardised modular containers can improve space utilisation at the unit load level.
E-grocery: comparing the environmental impacts of the online and offline purchasing processes
Published in International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications, 2022
Chiara Siragusa, Angela Tumino
The generic e-commerce purchasing process is composed of five phases (cf. Figure 2). Stock replenishment – Replenishment consists of transferring goods from the central warehouse (upstream) to the dedicated warehouse to fulfil online orders (downstream). Goods are handled in large quantities, and the unit loads are typically pallets (Whiteoak 2004). The flow of goods for replenishment is transported by rigid trucks (18 tons).Pre-sale and sale – The customer adds all desired items to the cart, and the payment is made. The pre-sale and sale activities are performed entirely online, including payment (Ramus and Nielsen 2005).Order picking and assembly – The order is received and managed by the retailer. Then, a picking list is created, and the picking activity is performed in the dedicated warehouse – consistent with the distribution configuration selected for the analysis. The order is picked following a batch-picking policy (Eriksson, Norrman, and Kembro 2019). Products are then sorted, and all items are placed directly in the packaging (typically bags) used for deliveries (Mkansi, de Leeuw, and Amosun 2019).Delivery – After the order is fulfilled in the dedicated warehouse, it is shipped directly to the customer. Distribution centres for fulfilling e-grocery orders are generally built close to customers to shorten the transport lead time: because of the large number of products per order, they do not require consolidation and sorting activities as other e-commerce industries typically do (Hays, Keskinocak, and De López 2005). Refrigerated diesel vans (payload = 1.5 tons) are used for the last-mile delivery routes (Figliozzi 2020). The delivery point of online orders is the customer’s house. Moreover, 100% first-time delivery success is assumed; thus, there are no failed deliveries because a customer is not at home: this is possible in this specific industry because limited time-windows (e.g. two hours) are defined for the deliveries, and the time window is chosen by the customer (Punakivi and Saranen 2001).Post-sale – If needed, the product can be picked up from the customer’s house and brought to the dedicated warehouse (Diggins, Chen, and Chen 2016).