Material Handling

Make work faster, safer and easier

Whether you’re lifting and positioning work, handling pallets, working with parts in containers or transporting loads, we offer a full range of picking solutions including lift tables, flow cell racks, pallet positioners, pallet lifters, container tilters, portable lift tables and stackers to make the job faster, safer and easier.

Flow Cells

One of the best ways to boost productivity, improve ergonomics, eliminate waste and maximize your space is to implement Flow Cell flow rack and workstation solutions. Flow Cell helps you apply Lean manufacturing principles and gives you the opportunity to create modular workstations designed specifically for your unique operation. The Flow Cell carton flow rack is proven to:

  • Increase space utilization by up to 50%.
  • Boost productivity up to 30% – parts angle toward the picker, making picking easy and fast.
  • Reduce reaching and improve ergonomics.
  • Create flexible dynamic storage to accommodate line and process changes.
  • Ensure FIFO rotation – replenishment from back does not interfere with process.
  • Keep the factory organized – totes and boxes are stored in return lanes rather than on the floor.

Conveying

Conveyors allow you to move products through your facility in a fast, efficient, and safe manner. They ensure workers aren’t carrying heavy parts or products around the facility, wasting time transporting materials from one place to another. They can also be used instead of fork lifts and other equipment to reduce operating costs, better utilize space, and reduce risks to pedestrians (and fork truck drivers).

Gravity conveyor is ever-present in almost any industry that involves product movement. In distribution operations, gravity conveyor is used in pick modules to move completed picks from the module to the packing and shipping area. In manufacturing operations, gravity conveyor is used to move parts from one assembly station to the next. In logistics hubs, gravity conveyor can be used to load and unload trucks with product. Even retail operations use gravity conveyor to sequence orders and more efficiently move product into and out of their stock rooms.

UNEX manufactures a full line of customizable gravity conveyor solutions for a multitude of applications. We provide both roller and skatewheel conveyors for portable or permanent applications, along with a full offering of accessories like stops, gates, guardrails, and more. Our gravity conveyor is manufactured to the inch based on your specific needs, eliminating the need for you to cut and deburr lengths of conveyor to fit your operation.

Part Picking

Part picking is used in virtually every manufacturing operation and can become a time-consuming process- especially for manufacturers that have yet to embrace and implement lean manufacturing. At a workstation on an assembly line, workers who are assembling products need to pick parts to combine with the item they are working on. When these workstations are depleted, a picker must pick parts from a manufacturing supermarket near the assembly line. When the manufacturing supermarket is then in turn depleted, a worker must pick and transport parts from reserve storage (or from shipping and receiving as new parts are delivered) in order to keep the manufacturing process moving.

Our solutions can be used to minimize the impact part picking has on your manufacturing operation. Our flow racks can feed parts right to your workers, and can be customized with workbenches, overhead tool bars, monitor arms, and many other accessories to keep your workers humming along with little to no interruption. These flow racks allow you to increase storage density on the assembly line without increasing the footprint of your workstations, allowing your workers to complete more tasks without making a trip to the manufacturing supermarket to replenish their parts.

Case Picking

Case picking is common in distribution centers serving retail or online stores. Third party logistics providers, big box store suppliers, beer and liquor distributors, and many other businesses devote a significant portion of their warehouse to case picking. However, case picking operations face a major challenge- with all those cartons comes an ever-growing footprint. How can you ensure a fast, accurate case pick that meets your customers’ expectations without surrendering a large portion of your warehouse or distribution center to case storage? What can you do to alleviate the strain case picks place on your workforce and keep both your team and your customers happy?

For slow moving products, UNEX manufactures tilted pick shelving designed to hold smaller quantities and present them to order pickers so they can pick product without having to reach and bend into the rack. Storing product on shelving condenses and organizes SKUs to reduce travel time and maximize space utilization. For faster moving products, UNEX manufactures a basic line of pallet conveyor that provides dynamic storage for pallets. Picking from a pallet is ideal for faster moving products because operators don’t have to double handle the product to load the product into shelving. They simply load the entire pallet as a location on the pick line.

Each Picking

As e-commerce and omnichannel operations continue to grow and increase their share of the retail market, each picking operations are also growing in use and scope. Each picking operations are employed in distribution centers that are focused on delivering products directly to customers, whereas case picking operations are typically used to stock retail locations’ shelves. Big box retailers utilize each picking operations to prepare orders for in-store or distribution center pickup. Each picking is also crucial for fresh grocery delivery services, where grocery orders are picked, prepared, and shipped directly to customers’ homes. Because of the lower revenue and higher labor costs generated by each picking operations, companies need to insure their processes are optimized for fast, easy, and accurate order fulfillment.

UNEX designs customized each picking solutions with three goals in mind: to increase pick rates, decrease mispicks, and improve ergonomics at the point of pick. Our line of Tilted Pick Shelves present the top of the master carton to the order picker, allowing the picker to clearly identify and pick the proper SKU. UNEX’s carton flow system, Span-Track, can be knuckled to produce the same results while eliminating the dead zone in your rack.