Top Tech Trends in Materials Handling

Infopeople webinar highlighting the trends in materials handling including:

  1. Pricing of AMH systems going down
  2. Quality of AMH systems going up
  3. Automated check-in with sorting becoming standard
  4. Kiosks a hit but still a tad buggy

Lots of info about automated check-in systems, small sorters, advancements in sefl-check-in technology, kiosks and dispensers and new AMH products entering the market.

New Book on Library Delivery

I'm one of the contributing authors for a new book titled Moving Materials: Physical Delivery in Libraries available from ALA Editions.
Valerie Horton and Bruce Smith are the editors. It's $70 (crazy high ALA prices) and is available for preorder now.
Here's how they describe the book:

Picking, packing, delivering, and returning library materials can be very time consuming and expensive; yet, it is one of the most important and least understood functions within a library.

Report: Analysis of Cost Savings with Automated Check-in

Attached is the result of a study I did for King County Library System comparing materials handling operations at two very similar libraries: one with automated self check-in and library sorter, and the other using manual materials handling. The report (PDF) demonstrates significant savings at the library with automated check-in. It's short and sweet. Give it a read!

Cost Savings Resulting from Automated Checkin

I recently undertook an analysis of the cost savings (if any) of a client's use of automated checkin. This was an interesting project for me because I wasn't sure how it would turn out. Although I'm a big fan of automated checkin for many reasons, I wasn't sure that it would result in clear cost savings for this particular client because they were already using automation in their central sort operation. The automated central sort system included a tote checkin feature -- this means the receiving library only had to scan a tote (or bin) to checkin all the items in the tote.