Handling materials flow in the brewing industry

G. A. Smith

Abstract
Many companies still regard materials handling as a part of general overhead, which is difficult to understand, because the materials handling function may amount to as little as 20% of production costs or as high as 85%. Productivity is a ratio of input to output. To measure productivity, we must know the flow of material and the basic principles involved. To measure productivity in relation to flow, we must know: where our markets are, how we finance materials handling equipment, patterns of distribution, procurement and purchasing of equipment and raw materials engineering and research as these relate to containerization and packaging, fluctuations in sales (and how best to cope with them), and other general production problems.