Material flow technology

Material flow is the chain of all operations a material passes through within a plant: processing, inspecting, handling, conveying, storing – and waiting. Material flow technology plans that chain and provides the means for it.

The perspective is that of the material. The question is not what a machine can do but how a part gets from delivery to despatch, how often it is touched on the way and how long it lies idle.

The analysis starts with a survey: what quantities move between which stations? This is recorded in a from-to matrix and visualised in a Sankey diagram, in which the width of each arrow corresponds to the quantity.

It shows where routes cross, where material runs back and where it is transferred frequently. Every transfer is a handling operation – and every handling operation costs time, carries a risk of damage and, if done by hand, is a physical strain.

In material flow planning, routes and stations are in the foreground. The transitions between them – from container to machine, from belt to pallet – appear in the layout as a dot. On the shop floor they are the workstations where lifting takes place.

A hoist needs a supporting structure: a column with a foundation, a wall bracket or a rail system on the ceiling or on posts. Whether ceiling or floor can take the loads, whether the headroom is sufficient and whether a crane, a light fitting or a sprinkler pipe is in the way is cheapest to settle at the layout stage.

The typical mistake is the reverse order: the line is installed first, then it turns out that the lifting at three stations is too heavy – and the space for the device is missing.