It is easy to miss waiting times between production stages since there would be no apparent malfunction of any particular piece of equipment. A process ends, and then the following process has to wait until the necessary materials arrive. At the same time, somewhere, material piles up since it cannot be used for the next operation.

This problem causes a chain reaction since the delay in moving the material may lead to underutilization of machines, increase in work-in-process inventory, disturbance in production schedule, and loss of time by employees trying to fix problems which do not need to exist in a coordinated production flow.

Moreover, the problem gets even more complicated if there is more than one production line, storage areas, conveyors, robots, and manual material handling going on at a plant. The individual pieces of equipment do their work perfectly well; yet, the overall flow does not make much sense.

Material handling automation can solve this issue through coordination of material movement instead of each individual operation with material handling.

One must also note that the aim should not simply be the highest level of transportation speed. If material moves too fast through a limited process, queues will develop. If it is moved too slowly, the downstream machine may be idle. Hence, the correct way out is highly dependent on production synchronization.

Factories can also benefit greatly from determining the reason for the development of queues. Is the material delivered to the plant in time? Does the wrong material arrive at the factory? Does one of the machines work slower than anticipated? Is the transportation of material disrupted due to other activities? Answers to such questions will show which aspect is problematic - scheduling, capacity, balancing, or synchronization of processes.

Through material handling automation of the process flow, waiting can be reduced and the process of material availability can be made more consistent. What is achieved thereby is not only higher transportation speeds but also the increased likelihood of materials arriving at the next stage of production just in time.