SHEET NO (2)

MATERIAL HANDLING
INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING M1382

Dr. Ashraf Kamal

Eng. Yahya Abdelhameed
Industrial Engineering Tutorials


1) What are the key definitions of material handling (MH)?

2) What are the objectives of materials handling?

3) Name at least eight principles of material handling.

4) Briefly discuss five principles of material handling.

5) Draw a schematic diagram showing the material handling system equation.

6) What is meant by material flow and how to develop material flow system?

7) Briefly discuss the six-phased engineering process used in material handling

systems design and improvement.

8) What are the advantages and disadvantages of material handling system?

9) What are the design considerations in material handling system?

10) What are the different characteristics of materials that affect the selection of
material handling equipment?

11) Material handling equipment must be included in the plant layout design, show
the correlation between layout type and material handling equipment.

12) What is the definition of unit load and what are the components of unit load?

13) Why are the unit loads used in material handling?

14) Write down examples of shape and size of pallets.

15) Name examples of stacking patterns.

16) Classify the main types of material transport equipment.

17) Compare between different types of industrial trucks.

2017-2018 Page | 1
Industrial Engineering Tutorials

18) What is meant by AGV and what are the main types of AGVs?

19) What are the applications of AGVs?

20) Briefly discuss the technologies used in vehicle guidance.

21) What is meant by an industrial robot and what is the importance of using it?

22) Classify robots according to physical configuration and control system.

23) What are the types of conveyors? Briefly discuss each type.

24) Compare between cranes and hoists.

25) What are the different types of cranes?

26) What is meant by automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS or AS/RS)?

27) What is the function of AS/RS?

28) Mention the benefits of using AS/RS.

29) Briefly discuss the types of AS/RS?

30) A new belt conveyor which is required as a flow line of dry sand from the
warehousing to the sand casting workshop, two types of belt conveyors can be
used (flat or troughed) as the following figure:

- The following data were available: width of sand (b) = 80 cm, dynamic angle of
repose (Φ) = 30o, sand density = 1600 kg/m3, conveyor speed is 0.5 m/s. Find the
conveying capacity for two types of belt conveyor.
- If the length of flat belt conveyor is 10 m, and the mass of belt per meter is 12 kg/m,
and the moving mass of carrying and return idlers are 15 kg/m and 3 kg/m
respectively, and the coefficient of friction between belt and idlers is 0.05. Find the
power required to drive this conveyor.

2017-2018 Page | 2
Industrial Engineering Tutorials

31) A single direction conveyor system has to be designed to meet a part flow rate of
60 parts per minute. Each container in the conveyor can hold 6 parts. The distance
between the loading and unloading points is about 10 m. Determine the required
conveyor speed and the allowable loading time if the spacing between the
containers is 1 m.

32) An overhead conveyor has hooks and moves painted doors over a distance of 400
m in a single direction at 100 m/min between the paint station and the
intermediate storage area. The cycle time for painting a door is 2 min. Determine
the spacing between the hooks and the flow rate of parts in the conveyor system.
Assume the unloading time is equal to the paint cycle time.

33) A forklift truck initially costs L.E. 200,000 and has an expected life of 5 years. Fuel
cost is L.E. 100.00 per 8 hours of operation, and maintenance cost is L.E. 15.0 an
hour. If the truck travels an average of 3,000 meter per day, determine the cost
per meter. Assume that the truck operates 360 days a year and that the operator
is paid L.E. 25.00 an hour.

34) A L.E. 100,000 tractor truck has an expected life of 8 years. The truck operates 280
days a year and travels an average of 5,000 meter per day. If the fuel costs about
L.E. 90.00 a day and maintenance costs are L.E. 7.5 an hour, determine the cost per
meter for operating this vehicle. Operator cost is L.E. 80.00/hour.

35) Johnson and Johnson (JJ) is planning to integrate the AGVS and AS/RS with their
flexible manufacturing system. JJ is interested in estimating the number of AGVSs
required to satisfy the needs of the manufacturing system; that means the system
must be capable of making 65 deliveries per hour. JJ has already decided to install
a laser guide path system and unit load AGVS adequately serves company needs.
The following data have been collected: vehicle speed = 55 m/min, average loaded
travel distance per delivery = 165 m, average empty travel distance per delivery =
110 m, pickup lime = 0.5 min, drop off time = 0.5 min, traffic factor = 0.85.

36) The proposed AGV system for a manufacturing unit must be capable of making 80
deliveries per hour. The type of AGV selected for this application has a velocity of
50 m/min. Based on the current facility layout, the average loaded travel distance
will be 150 m and the average empty travel distance will be 100 m. The total loading
and unloading time will average about 1 min. Assuming a traffic factor of 0.8,
determine the number of AGVs required.

2017-2018 Page | 3
Industrial Engineering Tutorials

37) An automated guided vehicle system is used inside a telephone repair facility. The
vehicles move repaired telephones from the repair facility to the packing area.
Owing to the nature of the layout, the loaded travel distance is 300 m and the
empty travel distance is 500 m. The system must be able to move 750 phones per
hour. The load and unload time is about 1 min and the speed of the vehicle is 120
m/min. Determine the number of AGVs required. Knowing that each vehicle
capacity is 20 phones.

38) Suppose an AGV system is chosen for delivering small parts from storage to four
shops in a plant, as shown in Figure. (Most guided vehicles can carry a load of 1000
to 4000 Kg) Determine the number of vehicles needed, given the information in
Table. (Assume that each vehicle can carry parts to and from only one shop at a
time) The AGVs under consideration can travel at a rate of 60 m/min. (Between 60
and 78 m/min is the normal speed for an AGV), and a congestion factor of 0.85.

Table: AGV Distribution System Data

Distance from Number of trips Loading/Unloading
Shop No.
storage (m) (per hour) (min)
1 90 14 2
2 150 16 3
3 180 5 3
4 240 8 2

39) Parts needed for production in departments 1, 2, and 3 are moved from storage
by AGVs. Using the distance from the storage to each department as shown in
Figure and given the number of trips that will be made per hour to each
department and the time needed for loading and unloading given in the
accompanying table. Determine how many vehicles are needed. Assume an AGV
speed of 60 m/min and a congestion factor of 0.85.

Number of trips Loading/Unloading

Department
(per hour) (min)
1 10 2
2 15 4
3 20 3

2017-2018 Page | 4
Industrial Engineering Tutorials

40) The oval of a top-driven carousel has a length of 15 m and a width of 1.5 m. The
speed of the carousel is 3 m/min, there are 60 carriers around the carousel and
each carrier contains only one bin, for a single and bidirectional carousel, compute
the average part retrieval time assuming a handling time of 30 s, Also, determine
the spacing between the carriers.

41) Calculate the cycle and production rate for a single-machine robotic cell one or
two-handed gripper for an 8-hr shift if the system availability is 85 %. Also
determine the percent utilization of machine and robot. On average, the machine
takes 48 sec. to process a part. The other robot operation times are as follows:

Activities Time (sec)

Robot picks a shaft from the conveyor 4.5
Robot moves the shaft to the lathe 2
Robot loads the shaft onto the lathe 1
Robot unloads the shaft from the lathe 0.5
Robot moves the conveyor 2
Robot puts the shaft on the outgoing conveyor 0.75
Robot moves from the output conveyor to the input conveyor 5

2017-2018 Page | 5
Industrial Engineering Tutorials

42) An Industrial robot is used in production facility load and unload workpieces from
a machine, these data table can be found:
Elemental Operation Times for a Robot
Activities Time (sec)
Machine operation time 25
Times associated with the robot
Unload unit 1.2
Move to the finished part conveyor 1.7
Release the unit 0.2
Move the arm to the input conveyor 2.6
Pick up a unit 0.3
Move to the machine 1.9
Load the machine 2.1

Find the cycle time using: one or two-handed gripper, then find the total
production units in an 8-hour-per-day operation with 80% efficiency.

2017-2018 Page | 6