a manner as to reduce accidents and lessen
equipment damage.
When practicable, move material in a horizontal
plane or with the aid of gravity. The ideal lifting
point of material is at the waist level. The nearer
to the waist the material can be picked up or
disposed of, the greater the efficiency.
Material Handling Equipment
Requirements
A balanced operation provides for the optimum
number of people and MHE to complete a specified
workload. Too many personnel and not enough MHE
(or vice versa) can cause bottlenecks. To produce a
smooth operation, you should know how to determine
the MHE requirements for the job.
You should consider several factors when selecting
the MHE requirements. If all supplies to be moved are
palletized and squared off for stacking, you may need a
forklift truck and operator. However, you might need
personnel to manually handle some materials. Terrain,
location arrangement, design of the building, and extent
of the open storage area will also affect MHE
requirements. Material characteristics will also affect
selection of the required MHE. Some material may
require the use of electric or battery-operated forklift
trucks.
COMPUTING MHE REQUIREMENTS.– TIhe
following factors should be used in computing MHE
requirements.
l
l
l
l
The volume or size of the operation to be
performed (for example, the number of pallet
loads to be moved to another area is 48 pallets).
The number of units of the volume carried in
each trip (for example, the number of pallets
carried by the forklift truck in each trip is two
pallets).
The average time expended to accomplish a
round trip (for example, one round trip takes 5
minutes to finish).
The allotted time to finish the job (for example,
the job should take 2 hours to finish).
The formula for determining the MHE requirement
is as follows:
FORMULA: ~xT+AT=R
Explanation of symbols;
V — Volume or size of the operation to be
performed
C — Units of volume carried per trip by MHE
T — Average expended time to complete around
trip
AT — Allotted time to do the job
R — Equipment requirement
Using the data in the examples above, the
computation will be as follows:
~ x 5 + 120 (rein)= 1 forklift truck
NOTE: We use the requirement for forklift trucks
in the example assuming the distance of travel is less
than 400 feet).
COMPUTING PALLET REQUIREMENTS.—
The measurements of a standard pallet is 40 x 48
inches. Allowing for overhang (roughly 25 percent),
the square feet occupied by each pallet is approximately
16(4 ft x 4 ft). If procedures permit stacking of four
pallets high, four pallets are required for each 16 square
feet of net usable storage space. The formula for
determining pallet requirements is as follows:
FORMULA:
Explanation of symbols:
S— Net covered storage area, (in SQ FT) used for
bulk storage.
H—Average stacking height expressed in pallet
course (pallet loads).
D—Square feet of floor area occupied by pallet size
with 25 percent added to compensate for load
overhang and clearance.
R—Quantity of pallets required.
For an example, compute the pallet requirements
for 59,500 feet of usable floor spare with stacking
height of four pallets. The computation is as follows:
2-25
