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Most people think the fork lift truck hasn't changed much in the last twenty years. They could be wrong. In fact, our contributor thinks that the “re‐shaping” of the truck has now generated a large family of specialised trucks, each designed for a narrower purpose, but each more versatile. The fork lift truck can now do almost the same job as a computer‐controlled stacker crane — but at much less cost. With the rapid spread of EPOS techniques this is happening at the right time.

IN a departure from usual practice this issue concentrates to a large extent upon a single subject — Mechanical Handling. It coincides with that industry's exhibition at Earls Court from the 9th to 19th of this month, to be opened by the Rt. Hon. Christopher Chataway, M.P., Minister for Industrial Development. In consequence it was necessary to defer some regular features for a time, for which we apologise.

READ a current Government publication, and you work study technicians can draw the inference that you are feared by managements of the Central Electricity Authority. Those managements have declined to apply work study technique because, the report says: “it is known that it will be difficult to deal with that redundancy when ascertained”. It goes on to say: “In consequence we find that work study, operational research and investigations into restrictive practices are undertaken without enthusiasm.”

THE month of exhibitions is upon us, and work study technicians will be interested in both the Mechanical Handling Exhibition at Earl's Court (May 9–19) and the Production Exhibition at Olympia (May 23–31). A preview of both these exhibitions is published on pages 28–56.

Logisticians in the worldwide industry are frequently faced with the problem of measuring the total cost of holding inventories with simple and easy-to-use methodologies. The purpose of this paper is to look at the problem, and in particular illustrate the inventory holding cost rate computation, when different kind of warehousing systems are applied.

A multiple case study analysis is here developed and supported by a methodological framework directly derived from the working group discussions and brainstorming activities. Two different field of application are considered: one related to five companies with manual warehousing systems operating with traditional fork lift trucks; the other is among five companies operating with automated storage/retrieval systems (AS/RS) to store inventories.

The multi-case study helps to understand how the holding cost parameter is currently computed by industrial managers and how much the difference between manual and automated/automatic warehousing systems impacts on the inventory cost structure definition. The insights from the ten case studies provide evidence that the kind of storage system adopted inside the factory can impact on the holding cost rate computation and permit to derive important considerations.

The final aim of this work is to help industrial engineers and logisticians in correctly understanding the inventory costs involved in their systems and their cost structure. In addition, the multi-case analysis leads to considerations, to be applied in different industrial contexts. As other industrial applications are identified, they may be analyzed by using the presented methodology, and with aid from the data from this paper.

The relevance of this work is to help industrial engineers and logisticians in understanding correctly the inventory costs involved in their logistics systems and their cost structure. In addition, the multi-case analysis lead to interesting final considerations, easily to be applied in different industrial contexts. As other industrial applications are identified, they may be analyzed by using the methodology and extrapolating the data from this paper.

Retreat of the Critics. The publication, last month, of a series of six main articles on Work Study with an introductory leader in The Financial Times was yet further proof of the increasing interest and importance accorded by the nation at large to this decisive “tool of management” which has been, until comparatively recent years, the dream of a few, forward‐looking pioneers. During the past year or two, however, increasing references have been made to Work Study on the radio and television, and in the daily press. As The Financial Times points out: “The critical voices seem now to be growing fainter. For example, no less than 800 industrialists from every part of the country attended the recent conference on Work Study at Harrogate, organised by the British Institute of Management.”

SPEAKING at a meeting of the Engineering Industry Marketing Group of the Institute of Marketing recently, Sir Montague Finniston, FRS, FMS, made an attack on the future plans of the British Steel Corporation. He maintained that to make substantial cuts in the Corporation's steelmaking capacity was “absurd”.

‘A MAP OF THE WORLD that does not include Utopia is not worth glancing at’ wrote Oscar Wilde. ‘It leaves out the one country at which humanity is always landing. And when it lands there it looks out and, seeing a better country, sets sail again. Progress is the realization of Utopias’.

In spite of having a number of general‐purpose algorithms for solving plant layout problems, facility planners may still face a challenging task to adjust these algorithms to handle special, but not uncommon, layout problems. The purpose of this study is to propose a new method for addressing the impact of overhead space utilization on a plant layout solution.

A new method for adjusting material flow under a mixed floor and overhead material handling condition is incorporated in an existing plant layout procedure. A case study involving the layout improvement in a lawn mower engine assembly facility is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

The analysis of solutions for the case study shows that the layout generated by the proposed modified material flow approach is a more economical solution. The case also shows, when it is important to optimize the use of space, the overhead space should be considered as part of any methodology for designing a good layout.

The proposed modified material flow approach can be applied to any facility where the use of overhead space for material handling is justifiable by limited floor space and/or by high cost of land. The proposed method can be applied to small to medium size problems with minimal computational effort. However, as the size of facility grows, the manual calculation becomes more time consuming and potentially erratic.

This paper should be useful to both researchers and practitioners who deal with overhead space utilization in designing facility layouts.