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Automated Material Handling: Pros and Cons

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Jennie Miller

For the integration of manufacturing operations in a company developing any physical product for the market various material handling systems along with solutions are used to optimize the workflow and increase the throughput. Regardless of the size of the company, the kind of product it develops, and the target consumer market, almost every company is involved in applying some sort of material handling system.

Material handling basically refers towards the overall phenomena that get involved along with the supply chain management cycle and cover up every stage like manufacturing, productions, shipping, distribution, consuming, etc. Although there are many kinds of material handling systems based on their sizes, functionality, and requirements but the two basic kinds of material handling systems include:

  1. Manual Material Handling
  2. Automated Material Handling

The companies and organization with a small to mid-sized warehouse and limited size of product development, they moreover focus on the manual material handling. In the manual material handling each and everything from manufacturing to the shipping and delivering each and every task is performed by the human workers. The manual handling system is old and outdated but is still being used by some of the companies as they take time to adapt to the change and adapt to the automation revolution.

On the other hand, the big players of the game already opted for the material handling system model. The biggest reason is the size of the machinery, the time and cost reduction they were able to gain by moving on the automation material handling.  Automation gives their productivity a whole new dimension of a smooth workflow cycle along with the next level of adeptness.

Being all that good for the industry, still, material handling is not that much preferred in its pure form. A hybrid (combination) approach is more or less used by the maximum top-notch and even middle-level organizations. In the hybrid approach semi-automatic machinery is used for the heavy lifting, manufacturing, and shifting stuff but they are operated by the human workforce such as laborers and workers, etc. The reason for the hybrid approach to be most widely used is that it bridges the gap between old school and innovation. It enables the companies to reduce the risk of totally depending on the machines whereas the work is done swiftly as compared to the complete manual material handling system.

Despite not being adapted most widely still a lot of companies are switching to automated material handling on daily basis. Some of the highlighting pros and cons of material handling are mentioned below.

PROS:

  • Automated material handling systems helps in the reduction of time of the overall supply chain management cycle.
  • Automated material handling enables the process from manufacturing to distribution smooth and hassle-free.
  • The data is saved in the digital format in the automated material handling systems and can be used for further future predictions, market analysis, competitor analysis, forecasting, etc.
  • The automated material handling system reduces the overall labor cost and plays a vital role in the price reduction of the product as well.
  • The biggest pros of an material handling system are that it does not break the hierarchy at any point and data is smoothly delivered and exchanged between the departments as per requirement.

CONS:

  • Reprogramming of all the systems and machines for even small changes in the product cycle at any point.
  • Unable to innovate at any certain point as per the requirement of that particular hour.
  • Sometimes do results in compromised quality of products if the system is not updated and check properly.
  • Extra safety barriers can sometimes activate faux alarms due to uneven situations which can delay the whole process for a long time.
  • Do require proper checkup and maintenance of automated machines and equipment as the whole process solely depends on them and if something happens to any of the material handling equipment, the whole supply chain cycle is affected.
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Jennie Miller
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