Material Handling System Design Research Articles

Automatic Material Handling System Using PLC

This paper presents the design and development of an automatic material handling system utilizing a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) capable of efficiently managing loads up to 40 kg. The system integrates various components including Schneider PLC with corresponding data cables, proximity and photoelectric sensors with a detection distance of 4mm, servo motors operating at a speed of 60-100 RPM, a 24V DC power supply unit (input: 230V, output: 24V DC), Siemens MCB for circuit protection, Elmex connectors for terminal connections, Phoenix Contact Glass Relays operating at 230V AC, and numeric keypad push buttons with an input supply of 4-5V. The integration of these components ensures reliable operation and efficient handling of materials within the specified load capacity. This research contributes to the advancement of automated material handling systems, offering potential applications across various industries. Key Words: PLC, Ladder, Automation, HMI, Interlocking security

Design and Development of an Automatic Material Handling System Using PLC for 40 kg Load Capacity

This paper presents the design and development of an automatic material handling system utilizing a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) capable of efficiently managing loads up to 40 kg. The system integrates various components including Schneider PLC with corresponding data cables, proximity and photoelectric sensors with a detection distance of 4mm, servo motors operating at a speed of 60-100 RPM, a 24V DC power supply unit (input: 230V, output: 24V DC), Siemens MCB for circuit protection, Elmex connectors for terminal connections, Phoenix Contact Glass Relays operating at 230V AC, and numeric keypad push buttons with an input supply of 4-5V. The integration of these components ensures reliable operation and efficient handling of materials within the specified load capacity. This research contributes to the advancement of automated material handling systems, offering potential applications across various industries

Generation of material handling system alternatives: A constraints satisfaction problem approach

In the context of Industry 4.0, the design of efficient Material Handling Systems (MHS) plays a critical role in optimizing industrial operations and enhancing productivity. The integration of advanced technologies, automation, and complex systems has revolutionized industrial processes, emphasizing the need for defining coherent MHS alternatives prior to the deployment of a specific solution. This paper presents an integrated MHS alternative generation approach that combines MHE allocation, fleet sizing, and key performance indicator (KPI)-based evaluation to enhance MHS. The proposed approach deploys a Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) framework, which defines the conditions that must be satisfied by the values assigned to the MHE allocation and fleet sizing variables. The constraints capture the physical and operational characteristics of MHE and MHS, ensuring that the generated alternatives adhere to the specific requirements and limitations of the system. Once a set of feasible MHS alternatives complying with various constraints is established, further assessments can be carried out to gauge the dynamic behavior of these systems using methods like Discrete Event Simulation. The paper emphasizes the importance of incorporating a broader range of data categories, such as layout constraints, product characteristics, and Industry 4.0 challenges, to enhance the effectiveness and accuracy of the MHS design process. To evaluate the generated alternatives, a set of KPIs is proposed, encompassing operational, economic, environmental, safety, and security aspects. These KPIs enable decision-makers to assess alternative performance across multiple metrics, aiding in the identification of relevant solutions aligned with company objectives. The incorporation of KPIs provides a pre-evaluation of MHS alternatives, streamlining subsequent simulation and multicriteria decision-making processes. This research acknowledges the importance of alternative generation as an integral part of the broader MHS design problem.

The correlation between the pre-consolidation and Instantaneous Yield Locus (IYL) of bulk solids

The storage and transportation of bulk materials has seen a continuous increase in demand with the evolution of renewable energy systems and modern society. The extraction of minerals such as iron ore, copper, nickel, bauxite, and lithium is leading to the exploitation of previously abandoned mine sites as well as ore bodies that may have been disregarded. This demand necessitates more efficient systems to transport these bulk commodities from the mine site to the export terminal or end user. The design of new bulk material handling systems typically requires the measurement of the bulk material strength, commonly determined using a Jenike direct shear tester. Initially, these measurements were used for the design of free-flowing bulk commodities, such as grain in storage silos or granaries. Over more recent decades, Jenike direct shear measurements have been used for the determination of the flow properties of problematic bulk materials which show cohesive characteristics. Specifically, this testing is used to define the flow function of a bulk material, the relationship between the material strength and major principle stress, which is subsequently used in the design of material handling systems.This paper provides a mathematical relationship between the pre-consolidation and the Instantaneous Yield Locus (IYL) of a bulk material sample under Jenike direct shear testing conditions. When the voidage between the particles is considered, this relationship becomes critical in defining the stress states of a bulk material sample. By understanding these stress conditions, further insight into the tensile forces which lead to problematic material behaviours can also be gained. This becomes increasingly important when low consolidation applications, such as transfer chutes, are considered as this leads to blockages and therefore downtime and lost revenue within a mining operation results. To further gain an understanding of the tensile forces acting within a bulk material sample, inter-particle adhesion tests are compared with predicted values which are determined using the outlined mathematical relationship.

Design of Material Handling System for Process industry

Design of Material Handling System for Process industry

Design and Analysis of Material Handling System

In today’s competitive global market, industries and manufacturing companies demand adjustable sizes, higher quality, flexibility, and shorter lead time types of products to be manufactured. Companies need to attain customer satisfaction and cost reduction in production operations. A material Handling System is a way to accomplish this goal since they directly impact production. This study aims to design an in-house Material Handling system that could be efficient for the production it serves. The material handling system design was made to pick and place the head expander on the vibrating machine from the floor beside the machine. The vibration testing components are placed on the head expander where it is placed on the vibration machine to check the frequencies the component can absorb. This componentis used in aerospace industries. The material used for building the Material Handling System is mild steel. By analyzing the possibilities from literature review and empirical study first problems and challenges related to material handling system are identified, then possible features that the system should possess are observed and design is built according to the selected features. The design of this Material Handling System is made by using Solid works software. The developed model is further analyzed by the boundary condition for total deformation when the constant load acts on the model at different places. Dynamic analysis to be made for the vibration absorbed by the material handling system. Here both static and dynamic analysis is made forthe structural model using ANSYS WORKBENCH software.

Portable Bricks Transfer Conveyor Belt

Abstract: In the process or manufacturing industry, raw materials and products need to be transported from one manufacturing stage to Another Material handling equipment are designed such that they facilitate easy, cheap, fast and safe loading and unloading with least human interference. For instance, belt conveyor system can be employed for easy handling of materials beyond human capacity in terms of weight and height. During the construction of slabs in civil structure, the continuous supply of construction material is needed. This is usually done with the help of labours, sometimes; a temporary material lift is fabricated for this. Both this process is labor intensive and costly. In this project we are undertaking design of material handling system which can supply construction material continuously to the top end of the construction site, and also to ensure the mobility of this system. For more than 200 years, belt conveyors are in use in many industries, especially in mining, cement, steel and agricultural industries. Belt conveyors have had an increasing importance and use during the past century. Today, they have the significant role in mining, cement factories, grain manipulation, etc. By time, applications of transporting materials from one point to another extended its boundaries; by requiring longer transfer distances, much faster speeds and much higher capacities.

Design and Development of Material Handling System with a Shop Articles

Design and Development of Material Handling System with a Shop Articles

Design Consideration of Material Handling Equipment for Ganga Iron and Steel Limited, Nagpur

In the last several years’ material handling has become a new, complex, and rapidly evolving science. Material handling system (MHS) design has a direct influence on the logistics cost. This work is to locates and identifies the wasteful activities regarding the material handling, and to streamline the activities to reach a minimum of material handling. Most of industries are using EOT cranes for handling of material. In today’s modern era, crane is very important material handling equipment in industry because of safety reliability, fast speed, economy etc. In this paper, discussed about design Consideration of material handling equipment for ganga iron and steel limited Nagpur. In the current material handling equipment, the life of the overhead crane as well as the cost of the material handling equipment is too important to stay in the competitive market of the industries. The cost of the material handling equipment is depending on the weight of the material. The performance of the material handling equipment will be done by the working on the optimization of the overhead crane used in the industries. Crane is a reliable component for lifting load in industries. Crane fails due to high friction in between wire rope and pulley. It leads to failure in gear box or it may increase power requirement of crane to lift loads. It is necessary for the crane to lift the load with minimum effort and minimum friction between the mating surfaces Based on the design calculations and analysis, a prototype crane was simulation, ncs, analysis.

Productivity Enhancement with Material Handling System Design and Human Factors Analysis – a Case Study

Global competitiveness leads industry to meet the customer needs by short lead time to market and quality products with low prices. Survival in such a market can be accomplished by either adopting latest technologies or improving the existing systems to the best possible level. Acquiring these technologies need heavy investments and consistent demands due to which small and medium industries skip this option and tend to opt for other choice that is: improve the existing system. Material handling activities contributes a significant investment in production cost. Effective handling system reduces total production cost while considering ergonomics issues improves the productivity. This paper presents a conceptual framework with material handling systems design and the effects of human factors to improve productivity by reducing cost and optimizing quality. The framework provides a general methodology for analyzing a manufacturing/production line. Procedure for its implementation is discussed in a hierarchical way and finally the framework is used to analyze the production lines of a petrochemical industry. The analysis results in successful improvement of the process with 15% increase in overall manufacturing cycle efficiency.

Presenting an Innovative Process Improvement Method for the Efficient Forklift Material Handling Systems in the Industry 4.0

The rapid adoption of Industry 4.0 principles in the manufacturing sector during the last couple of years has created numerous possibilities for development. One key area related to manufacturing in which Industry 4.0 solutions can have a significant impact is the field of materials handling. However, today the majority of manufacturing companies still overly rely on the utilization of standard forklift material handling systems for supporting their operations. In this paper, our goal is to present a novel process improvement method utilizing Industry 4.0 principles which could significantly aid in the design of efficient forklift material handling systems. We believe that by utilizing the opportunities inherent in Industry 4.0 (in this case mainly sensor systems, big data analysis, digitalization and real-time data transfer), forklift based material handling can be elevated to an entirely new level in terms of efficiency, which could greatly improve the overall performance of the vast majority of manufacturing systems.

Koon típusú anyagmozgató rendszerek megbízhatósága

A logisztikai és anyagáramlási rendszerek tervezésének számos szempontja van: költség, kapacitás kihasználtság, rugalmasság, átláthatóság, környezetterhelés. A megbízhatóság ezen tervezési szempontokra jelentős hatást tud gyakorolni. A logisztikai rendszerek és ellátási láncok tervezésében a megbízhatósági kérdések megválaszolásának egyre nagyobb szerep jut, hiszen nagy igény mutatkozik a beruházási és üzemeltetési költségek csökkentésére a rendszerek és folyamatok megbízhatóságának fokozása mellett. Jelen kutatómunka célja a koon (k-out-of-n) típusú anyagáramlási folyamatok megbízhatóságának vizsgálata. Bemutatásra kerül az egyes rendszerelemek megbízhatóságának rendszer-megbízhatóságra gyakorolt hatása, valamint egy esettanulmányon keresztül bemutatjuk, hogy anyagmozgató gépek megbízhatóságát is lehet, mint rendszer-megbízhatóságot kezelni gépelemek, mint rendszerek megbízhatóságaként.

Iterative two-stage hybrid algorithm for the vehicle lifter location problem in semiconductor manufacturing

Automated material handling systems (AMHSs) in semiconductor fabrication facilities (fabs) are inherently capital intensive because they are moving toward full automation. However, in addition to being capital intensive, full automation can come at the cost of compromised performance or instability when abnormal events occur. Vehicular congestion is one example of an abnormal event and is a recurring problem in fabs that reduces production efficiency. In this paper, motivated by a material handling system design problem when constructing a new semiconductor fabrication plant in practice, we present a model for optimizing the location of overhead hoist transport lifters, which have proven to be a suitable addition to AMHSs for resolving bottlenecks caused by heavy congestion. To do so, we study a capacitated facility location problem (CFLP) that incorporates real-life constraints and consider the interactions between lifters of differing types. We first propose a hybrid approach that combines a genetic algorithm with a depth-first search (DFS) based on memorization to approximate the optimum positions for the installation of the lifters. We then conduct a numerical experiment to compare the performance of our approach with optimal solutions in small- to medium-sized facilities and perform a sensitivity analysis for the important parameters involved. Finally, an experimental study based on real data from semiconductor fabs is conducted to demonstrate the applicability and usefulness of the proposed model.

Integrated Supervision for Supporting Control and Proactive Maintenance of Material Handling System

Abstract Material handling systems, as an important part of different type of manufacturing processes, face the same challenges as manufacturing industries pushed nowadays forward by innovative ideas and technologies to the next level loudly announced as industry 4.0. Development of the next generation of automated manufacturing systems involves advanced approaches to material handling systems design and their close integration with the higher levels of manufacturing and production control and management, e.g. manufacturing execution systems (MES), enterprise resource planning (ERP). In the presence of increasing demands for manufacturing process optimization, the role of supervisory level of material handling systems is much more advanced today, ensuring not only data acquisition, visualization, monitoring, supervisory control, as well as synchronization with the higher control levels (FEM, ERP), but also providing functionality for supporting maintenance and decision-making processes to reduce downtimes, operations and maintenance costs. The article deals with the integration of control and maintenance functions in the hierarchical control system of a crane. The supervisory system for supporting control and proactive maintenance is prototyped at the laboratory overhead travelling crane. The article presents the control-measurement equipment and intelligent software tools implemented in the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system to aid decision-making process in proactive maintenance. The overview of the main components of the supervisory control and proactive maintenance subsystems is provided, and their respective role in control, supervision, and proactive maintenance is explained. The crane’s supervisory control includes the stereovision-based subsystem applied to identify the crane’s transportation workspace, determine the safety and time-optimal point-to-point trajectory of a payload. The proactive maintenance module consists of the human machine interface (HMI) supporting decision-making process, intelligent tools for upcoming downtime/failure prediction, and the crane's girder inspection using the metal magnetic memory technique.

On an automated material handling system design problem in cellular manufacturing systems

We consider the automated material handling system design problem in a cellular manufacturing system (CMS). Simple transportation units including low-cost automated guided vehicles are quite often used in CMSs in South Korea. It is assumed that a transportation unit circulates among a group of cells (stations), and the unit is assumed to collect items from the output buffer of the stations. Collected items are unloaded at a cell which functions as a storage. We are interested in the capacity of the transportation unit, or the number of cells the transportation should visit. Using an embedded Markov chain, we derive the remaining capacity of the transportation unit when it leaves each station. In addition, the probability that the transportation unit is full at its departure epoch is also derived. We provide various numerical results including the effect of volatility of the arrival rates among stations. [Received: 30 December 2017; Revised: 18 October 2018; Accepted: 16 December 2018]

On an automated material handling system design problem in cellular manufacturing systems

We consider the automated material handling system design problem in a cellular manufacturing system (CMS). Simple transportation units including low-cost automated guided vehicles are quite often used in CMSs in South Korea. It is assumed that a transportation unit circulates among a group of cells (stations), and the unit is assumed to collect items from the output buffer of the stations. Collected items are unloaded at a cell which functions as a storage. We are interested in the capacity of the transportation unit, or the number of cells the transportation should visit. Using an embedded Markov chain, we derive the remaining capacity of the transportation unit when it leaves each station. In addition, the probability that the transportation unit is full at its departure epoch is also derived. We provide various numerical results including the effect of volatility of the arrival rates among stations. [Received: 30 December 2017; Revised: 18 October 2018; Accepted: 16 December 2018]

Design and manufacturing of a portable pneumatic material handling equipment

Many of the production and manufacturing firms adopt workspace automation for fast and economic production. Automation can be accomplished through hydraulics, pneumatics and robotics. This paper present the design and manufacturing of a portable pneumatic material handling system that can rise and move weight up to 3 kg. Such a machine can be used as a transport or positioning equipment in small scale production units. The design procedure includes the design of pneumatic cylinders, gears and arms. Then different components were manufactured according to the designed data and finally the assembled pneumatic framework is tried with the required weight.

Method for the design of material handling systems for lean automation

Method for the design of material handling systems for lean automation

Re-scheduling of AGVs Steady State Flow

The paper’s objective concerns assessing a mesh-like supply network of periodically acting local transportation modes from the perspective of possible re-scheduling the multimodal flows of jobs assigned to certain technological routes passing through common shared workstations. The considered reference model of a Material Transportation Network (MTN), where several heterogeneous means of material handling, e.g. AGVs, hoists, lifts, etc., interact with each other via common shared workstations, enables the formulation of scheduling and re-scheduling tasks in the context of a Periodic Vehicle Routing Problem. The main problem is in essence to identify conditions guaranteeing transient period free re-scheduling of cyclic steady state flows of multimodal processes and local transportation processes supporting their execution. Such sufficient conditions allows one to replace the exhaustive search for the admissible flows control by design of regular structure material handling system, i.e. to solve the considered class of re-scheduling problems online. The proposed methodology behind re-scheduling cyclic steady state production flows executed in regular-structure MTNs is clarified through multiple illustrative examples.

Simulation of Detecting Function object for AGV Using Computer Vision with Neural Network

The objective of this paper is to simulate the algorithm to detect object for Automated Guide Vehicle (AGV) guidance problem, namely to obstacle avoidance. Currently, the AGV is a transport vehicle widely used in manufacturing factories and plays an important role in the design of material handling system, moving goods to raw materials or finished product to rightful destination that work automatically. This method has been designed for use in security of internal transportation system in order to prevent a collision to the AGVs and the obstacles, which do not know the exact shape, size and color. Such real-time obstacle detection was crucial, we need to classify the obstacles that are real obstacles or fake obstacles. The computer vision with artificial neural networks (ANN) can help the AGV can see and recognize like a human by imitating the functions of the human brain. In this paper, we proposed an algorithm for detecting obstacle that work automatically with no human is required. The algorithm is divided in to two parts: First, a preliminary feature extraction stage by using the Histograms of Oriented Gradients (HOG) to extract height objects feature from the actual video images. Second, the recognition and classification of the obstacles that are real obstacles or fake obstacles such as a painting or text on the floor by a feed-forward time delay neural network (TDNN) in sequences of black and white video images taken by an on-board camera, then decide whether to hold or continue to be moved.As a result, this paper presents the simulate the algorithm to detect the obstacles for AGV, which can work to destination are defined and avoided obstacles by computer vision with TDNN as an alternative principle with high accuracy and reliability.