Top Ten Material Handling Automation: Leading suppliers of intralogistics

Material handling plays a vital role in manufacturing and logistics. Nearly every item in physical commerce is moved on a conveyor belt, forklift, or some other type of material handling equipment within production facilities, warehouses, and retail stores. While material handling is typically required in intralogistics as part of every production worker's job, over 650,000 people in the United States work as dedicated "material handling machine operators," earning a median annual wage of $31,530 (May 2012). These operators use material handling equipment to move various goods in a wide range of industrial environments, including moving building materials to construction sites or transporting goods to and from ships.

Related to this:

• Intralogistics 4.0 and the intelligent material flow systems of material flow engineering

Material handling encompasses the movement of materials over short distances within a building or between a building and a transport vehicle. A wide range of manual, semi-automatic, and automated equipment is used, and consideration is given to the protection, storage, and control of materials during their production, storage (e.g., buffer storage), distribution, consumption, and disposal. Material handling can be used to create temporal and spatial benefits through the handling, storage, and control of waste, in contrast to manufacturing, which creates a form-based benefit by changing the shape, form, and properties of the material.

World's leading providers of material handling automation systems in 2019-2020, based on revenue (in million US dollars)

This statistic shows the world's leading providers of material handling automation systems from 2019-2020. The German company Schaefer Holding International GmbH (SSI Schaefer) ranked third with a revenue of over US$3.1 billion in 2020.

Material handling automation systems – leading global providers 2020

• Daifuku Co., Ltd. – 4,540 million US dollars
• Dematic – 3,226 million US dollars
• Schäfer Group – 3,120 million US dollars
• Vanderlande – 2,100 million US dollars
• Honeywell Intelligrated – $2,018 million
• Murata Machinery Ltd. - 1,490 million US dollars
• Knapp AG – 1.45 billion US dollars
• Beumer Group GmbH – 1,400 million US dollars
• MHS/Material Handling Systems – $1,050 million
• TGW Logistics Group GmbH – 1,000 million US dollars
• Siemens Logistics – 1,000 million US dollars
• WITRON Integrated Logistics – 855 million US dollars
• Swisslog AG – 646 million US dollars
• Kardex AG – 466 million US dollars
• Bastian Solutions – $405 million
• Elettric 80 – 354 million US dollars
• System Logistics SpA – $262 million
• DMW&H – 214 million US dollars
• viastore Systems – $192 million
• SAVOYE – 185 million US dollars

Material handling automation systems – development/change from 2020 to 2019

• Daifuku Co., Ltd.: +13%
• Dematic: +21.2%
• Schäfer Group: -3%
• Vanderlande: +23.5%
• Honeywell Intelligrated: +12.1%
• Murata Machinery, Ltd.: -17.2%
• Knapp AG: +5.8%
• Beumer Group GmbH: +27.3%
• MHS: +5%
• TGW Logistics Group GmbH: +17.6%
• Siemens Logistics: N/A
• WITRON Integrated Logistics: +27%
• Swisslog AG: -4%
• Kardex AG: -12.4%
• Bastian Solutions: +14.7%
• Electric 80: +30.1%
• System Logistics SpA: +0.4%
• DMW&H: 0%
• viastore Systems: +22.3%
• SAVOYE: N/A

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Daifuku remains No. 1 for the 7th consecutive year and reports sales of more than US$4.5 billion for 2020, representing a sales increase of 13% compared to the previous year.

Stuart Oliphant from Daifuku's corporate communications department: “While the cleanroom and semiconductor sectors are experiencing a downward trend, sales of intralogistics systems for manufacturers and distributors remain robust, driven by an increase in projects from the e-commerce and food logistics sectors, which we partly attribute to the rise in working from home as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. A major project for automotive production line systems in North America, our largest to date, also contributed significantly.”

Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the material handling systems affected by supply chain disruptions and temporary closures. However, the food and beverage industry experienced growth, driven by increased automation. E-commerce also played a significant role in this.

Industry experts predicted an unprecedented level of project activity in 2020, particularly in the area of ​​warehouse and material flow automation. The focus remains on e-commerce growth and the increasing demands for fast and efficient delivery fulfillment with the same or even less labor. Goods-to-person automation is therefore taking center stage.

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• Networked distribution centers – Intralogistics 4.0
• Last Mile Logistics
• Intralogistics Glossary
• Intralogistics & Logistics Library (PDF)

Design of material handling systems

Material handling is an essential component of most production systems, as the efficient flow of materials between activities within a production system depends heavily on the arrangement (or layout) of those activities. When two activities are adjacent, material can be easily transferred from one to the other. When activities are arranged sequentially, a conveyor can transport the material at low cost. When activities are separated, more expensive material handling equipment or monorails are required for transport. The high cost of using material handling equipment for material handling stems from both the operator's labor costs and the negative impact on production system performance (e.g., increased work in process) when multiple material units are combined into a single transport batch to reduce the number of trips required.

Automated handling

Whenever technically and economically feasible, equipment can be deployed to reduce and ideally replace the need for manual material handling. Most existing material handling equipment is only semi-automatic, as a human operator is required for tasks such as loading, unloading, and driving, which have historically been difficult and/or too costly to fully automate. However, continuous advancements in sensor technology, machine intelligence, and robotics are making it possible to fully automate an increasing number of handling tasks. A rough guideline for determining how much can be spent on automated systems that would replace a material handler is to consider that the average operator of a moving machine costs a company approximately €38,000 per year, including benefits. Assuming a real interest rate of 1.7% and a useful life of 5 years for the equipment with no residual value, a company should be prepared to purchase automated equipment that replaces a worker (Intralogistics 4.0).

Related to this:

• Germany is a leader in robotics
• Robotics & Automation in the Warehouse
• Learn from Amazon Logistics
• Amazon is increasing its robot share

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