Innovation in material handling: work is more intelligent than hard
Manufacturing facilities and distribution centers have traditionally had to choose between keeping workers safe or maintaining their productivity. Because of recent material handling innovations, companies no longer need to make such trade-offs. Innovative and affordable material handling solutions enable workers to perform tasks faster and more accurately, while reducing the risk of injury from accidents and repetitive movements, and reducing costs associated with damaged parts, products, and machines. Increased productivity, fewer injuries, fewer parts and machine damage directly increase profit margins.
Driving higher productivity
High productivity has always been the key to profitability and competitiveness, and it has become more important in the period of severe labor shortage in manufacturing and logistics.
In fact, the prospect survey of the American Manufacturers Association found that "attracting and retaining high-quality labor" is one of the biggest business challenges faced by the respondents, and predicted that there would be 2.1 million unfilled jobs in the U.S. manufacturing industry by 2030. Instawork reported that 73% of warehouse operators could not find enough labor.
As the company tries to recruit and retain workers, the reduced labor force is pressed more and more, and the productivity is higher and higher. The potential problems of this trend are obvious. The Liberty Mutual Insurance Company warned: "In addition to causing stress, the lack of skilled workers also increases the risk of industrial injury, product liability and property damage in these enterprises.
Acceleration trend of automation
Enterprises have increasingly turned to automation to address these challenges. Automation can reduce labor demand, use fewer employees to complete the same function, and it can also help recruitment and retention by making work more attractive to workers.
However, complete automation is not suitable for, or even impossible for, every task, and it is often not commercially meaningful. Automation systems are expensive to design, manufacture and install, and often require professional skills to operate and maintain. For many applications in manufacturing and logistics, highly automated systems, including robotics, are not suitable at all, because their flexibility is not as good as that of humans, that is, machines with the most talent and versatility.
Worker Assistance Solutions
Fortunately, there are some material handling solutions between the fully manual end and the fully robotic automation system. These solutions use innovative system design and mature technology to help workers complete their work better and faster, while reducing fatigue and injury, and limiting damage to parts and equipment.
These worker assistance solutions combine:
·Power and power of the machine
·Human control and cognitive thinking
The basic concept of mechanical advantage has a history of thousands of years. After understanding the power of leverage and fulcrum, Archimedes is said to have boasted wittily: "Give me a place to stand, and I can move the world". Wheels, pulleys, wedges, screws and other simple machines were put into use, greatly expanding the tasks that people could accomplish with less effort.
Intelligent upgrading auxiliary solution; Work smarter, not harder.
Today, material handling assistance solutions fulfill the same basic promise, enabling operators to lift and manipulate heavy, large and bulky objects naturally and almost effortlessly, as if these devices were an extension of their arms.
Intelligent lift assist device (ILD) adopts advanced technology, such as lift system with processor controlled servo driver, which replaces heavy work with fingertip control and operability.
But intelligent material handling solutions are not just advanced technologies. They include the intelligent overall design of a complete solution, utilizing cranes and conveyors to best assist workers in each specific material handling application in the workshop and loading dock.
Intelligent device
Gorbel G-Force ? The company's intelligent lifting equipment reflects how the most advanced technology can effectively achieve ergonomic and user-friendly load operation. The servo drive system controlled by industrial processor enables G-Force to provide unmatched lifting accuracy and speed, which is a combination that traditional lifting equipment cannot provide.
In a study conducted by Rochester Institute of Technology in the UK, compared with other lifting solutions, including manual lifting, chain hoist and air balancer, the productivity of workers using this system in a high cycle environment has increased by nearly 70%.
G-Force is also good at providing precise control to operators, who need to carefully place expensive or fragile parts in the right place. In the precision placement test, RIT research found that the operator's efficiency was 77% higher than that of the air balancer and 59% higher than that of the traditional hoist.
High speed servo control system and sensor technology, as well as highly usable design, make the system very simple, easy and natural to operate. The optional force sensing handle can automatically detect the applied force without any handle action. Unlike other hoist systems, the operator needs to press the button or squeeze the handle to start up or down movement. The float mode allows the operator to accurately determine the direction of the load over the entire range of travel, starting vertical motion by manually manipulating the load and applying a force as low as 1/2 lb (227 g) to the load.
A combined collector/air rotator allows the handle to rotate continuously without damaging the coil wire or the conductor in the optional air coil. This is ideal for applications where the operator continuously rotates the handle. The control handle has the operator presence sensing function, making it safe and intuitive. The operator does not need to press the physical lever.
Intelligent system design of workstation crane
An optimal material handling solution is to pair the intelligent lifting equipment with the crane system, making horizontal movement as easy and effective as vertical lifting. Workstation cranes can achieve this goal better than other solutions, with excellent operability, enhanced safety, and large rectangular area accessible coverage.
Workstation crane, also known as bridge crane and bridge crane, is a kind of bridge industrial crane, which is composed of a mobile bridge across a parallel runway. A lifting device moves back and forth on the bridge, and the movement of the bridge makes it move in the vertical direction at the same time. A well-designed system will provide small rolling resistance for the bridge and trolley, so that operators can move freely in their work units and perform their tasks in an ergonomic manner.
Workstation cranes with intelligent lifting devices are much less complex and costly than fully automated systems, but still have significant improvements in productivity and safety compared with forklifts and other traditional material handling methods.
Workstation cranes are much more efficient, typically reducing cycle time significantly and freeing forklifts and forklift operators to perform other tasks. By using the workstation crane with intelligent lifting equipment instead of traditional lifting equipment, you can obtain more accurate control, thus greatly reducing the risk of workers' injury and damage to products or production equipment, such as expensive CNC machine tool chucks.
Assist workers and enhance the role of robot systems
As we pointed out earlier, the material handling assistance system provides a productivity and safety solution, filling the gap between a fully manual process at one end and a fully automated robotic system at the other.
Literally, this is often true. In application, intelligent lifting equipment is actually in front of highly automated systems. For example, in the aerospace industry, the ILD on the workstation crane is usually used to load expensive and fragile parts, which may be large and difficult to control, and are loaded into the fixture in the center of the robot machine. The material handling auxiliary system accurately and safely loads and unloads parts to protect workers, parts and processing equipment.
Intelligent system design of loading dock
Without complete automation, combine productivity and safety, not just in the production workshop. There are also innovations in material handling at the gate of the dock, saving the company time and money. Destuff it of Gorbel ? The portable ergonomic conveying system is another good example of a system design that allows workers to be smarter rather than work harder. These systems enable workers to load and unload containers and trailers more effectively, transferring boxes on the ground to the terminal area for sorting and stacking.
These systems provide a safe platform to raise the position of workers to the best height on the box wall, replacing the traditional stairs and the temptation to stand on the box. When unloading containers, workers transfer items from the platform to the conveyor belt or from the conveyor belt when loading containers.
According to the size and weight of boxes, a single worker can usually achieve a handling rate of more than 800 boxes per hour, thus reducing the labor cost of unloading by half. By reducing the amount of lifting, twisting, carrying, and overextending required, worker fatigue and muscle strain are reduced. In addition, products from wine bottles to furniture are unlikely to be damaged.
Improve productivity while protecting workers
From the dock door to the production workshop, there are a variety of affordable innovative material handling technologies that can significantly improve productivity, thereby increasing profitability, while also enhancing employee safety and protecting products and equipment.
