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There is now sufficient information and experience available
on the subject of automatic warehousing to make it possible
for an organisation with major storage problems to assess
the advantages and disadvantages of investing in one of these
highly sophisticated systems provided it examines its
requirements systematically and in detail. Additionally, it
is becoming possible to compute the relative cost advantages
of this kind of storage pattern as against the conventional
one (i.e. Fork Lift Trucks and Pallet Handling).
We believe that the present position regarding the feasibility
of automatic warehousing is untenable to most organisations.
There is, so far as we know, no detailed guide available or
published which enables any organisations to make even a
preliminary examination of the possible advantages of fully
automated storage.
From the theoretical work carried out at the Materials Handling
Research Unit* we can now derive rules by which the various
factors influencing feasibility can be measured and valid
comparisons be made. The detailed application of these rules
is likely to vary from case to case, and it would be impossible
to comprehensively describe their use in a short and nontechnical
publication.
The notes which follow are not to be regarded as rigid guide lines,
but attempt to set out the criteria by which an organisation may
judge its own readiness to accept a change to mechanised storage. |
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