Question

completely and thoroughly explain how the concept of a Unit Load impacts the cost making of any type of home appliance. discuss how the unit load changes from the time the parts are receieved at the dock to how it is processed in the manufacturing area into the finished product, and how the finished product is shipped to a retailer or customer.

Answer 1

The concept of unit load explains that a single unit of an item or multiple units arranged or restricted that they can be handled as a single unit and maintain their integrity. Most consumers or industrial products move through the supply chain in unit form for at least part of their distribution cycle. Unit loads can make handling storage and distribution more efficient. A typical approach to unit load size determination are based on the physical configuration of the container or pallet used to group the parts, on batch size, or on the constrains of the material handling device. The most important advantages of unit loading are more item can be handled at same time, thereby reducing number of trips required and can be reducing handling cost, loading and unloading time and product damage; it enable the use of standardised material handling equipment. Time spent forming and breaking down of unit loads, cost of containers or pallets and other load restraining materials used in unit and need of returning the empty containers or pallets to the point of origin are the major drawbacks of unit loading.
If we are thinking of the making of any type of home appliances, basically it is large in size and restrictions occurred during its handling. The major components considered are move cost and holding cost. Move cost consist of equipment and operator cost incurred when the load is transferred. The moving equipment and the operator costs are directly related to the mean transfer time that the load experience. Let us consider the case of home appliances, when a request is made to move the unit load of these appliances must wait until the material handling device is available, at which time the transfer can be take place. During the time where the load reaches from the producer to its wholesaler, there is a delay occurred at the working centre. In manufacturing sector a unit load may be a group of parts handled in a container, tote, box or pallet and moved as a unit. In the distribution of this manufactures, unit load may be a package or several packages held together in a larger box or on a pallet. By reducing move frequency the total move distance and consequently handling cost is reduced.
Unit cost is one of the most economical approaches to reduce the manufacturing costs and to build efficiency into material handling. The impact of unit loads pervades several aspects of manufacturing, ranging from raw materials warehouse through production on the shop floor to furnished product storage and warehouse. Because material handling is felt through entire spectrum of manufacturing and given that handling and storage unit is a major component in material handling. During the shipment of this furnished products, the material handling and its packing become different. This time there should be clean and well planned packing’s were shipped. One of the input requirements for material handling system selection is the number of moves to make. These moves equal to the number of unit load transfers to be made between stations. Most popular way of moving the furniture products using unit loads are use of lifting device under mass of loads, inserting lifting elements into the body of load, squeezing the load between two lifting surface etc. The most important platform used for these type of handling are pallets (paper, wood, plastic, metal) and skids (metal and plastics).