How To Select The Right Material Handling Equipment For Your Warehouse?

In a warehouse or facility, ineptly organized material, inventory mismanagement and over-handling takes a toll on your profitability. Well managed and handled materials makes a huge difference in efficient operations. With the permutation and combinations of capacity, lift heights and other specifications, a wide range of material handling equipment for floor transportation, towing, stacking, loading / unloading and lifting are available in the market today.

Given this, having the answer to a few critical questions before getting into the intricacies of equipment selection, is necessary.

1. Space requirement for operations and material storage
2. Storage systems and racking arrangements in place also impacts the choice of material handling equipment.Aisle width & distance and ceiling height are key determinants in the space deficient warehouses and facilities and creating a fit is important for achieving desired efficiency.
3. Products and material to be handled by the use of equipment
4. Anticipated operations in the supply chain from production to warehousing.

This information is vital in determining the requirement in terms of material handling equipment and selecting the apt one. Apart from the above, mapping of the future business activities and expansion plans is also necessary as it directly impacts your processes. With higher cost of ownership, foresightedness in emphasized on while procuring material handling equipment. If these parameters not taken into account with changing business scenario, the equipment may become obsolete for your evolving operations. Hence, maintaining flexibility in the fleet of material handling equipment selected plays a pivotal role in determining the type of equipment to be hand-picked.

No one will have a second opinion on the statement that selecting the correct equipment can do beyond maximize space. Analysis of the above mentioned parameters will go a long way in improving your warehouse processes, increasing your warehouse efficiency and will impact supply chain productivity at large.