Materials handling is one of the most important parts of a trade. It is actually described as the movement, transfer or storage of a certain facility within a large work area. Typically, the process involves very heavy load that is why there is a need to rely upon new or used materials handling equipment.
When picking used material handling equipment for a company, one must be able to understand the category where the item falls. There are different categories depending on the material handling needs of a certain business establishment. Take a look at some of the most common ones.
Transport equipment
This is one category of material handling equipment that is popular in a lot of industries. Generally, it is responsible for the movement of one material from a certain location to another. One typical example is the transfer of materials between workplaces.
There are major subcategories for transport material handling equipment including conveyors, industrial trucks and cranes. Samples of conveyors are chute, wheel, roller, chain, slat, flat belt, magnetic belt, bucket and screw conveyors. Samples of industrial trucks are hand, platform and counterbalanced lift trucks and pallet jacks. As for cranes, jib, bridge, stacker and gantry cranes are popular choices. cash and carry trolleys wholesale merchandising carts
Positioning equipment
This is a type of materials handling equipment that is used in order to position a material in one location for proper machining, transport and handling later on. This is favored in industries where material handling is done within the workplace. Common examples are lift tables, dock levelers, ball transfer tables, part feeders, air film devices, manipulators, hoists and balancers.
Unit load formation equipment
When looking for used material handling equipment falling under this category, one should be able to see if the machine serves the purposes of unit load formation. These types of equipment restrict the number of units carried in a single load. Some examples include pallets, skids, tote pans, pallet boxes, bins, cartons, crates, intermodal containers and palletizers.
Other material handling equipment categories
There are still two more major categories for used material handling equipment namely storage and identification and control equipment. Storage equipment is used in order to store, hold or buff materials for a set period of time. The most common machines found in this category are selective pallet racks, flow-through racks, pushback racks, sliding racks and stacking frames. As for identification and control equipment, the machines are used in order to collect information and coordinate material flows inside a facility. Bar codes, radio frequency tags, magnetic stripes, machine vision and portable data terminals are popular examples.