The World's Top 20 materials handling system suppliers
By Raymond A. Kulwiec; Gary Forger -- Modern Materials Handling, 1/1/1998
Some lists are essential. Grocery. Holiday gifts. To do. Others are more frivolous. Best dressed. Most popular.Now here's a list you've never seen before but probably thought would be helpful if it did appear. On the facing page is the first-ever global ranking of the 20 largest materials handling system suppliers doing business in the U.S. Until now, there was no way of knowing with any certainty how the leading materials handling system suppliers stacked up against each other.
As you can see, the 20 companies have about 40 operating units supplying systems to U.S. industry. The largest is Mannesmann Dematic at $2 billion and the smallest of the top 20 is SI Handling Systems at $42 million. Combined worldwide systems sales of these 20 companies exceeds $7 billion.
It's equally interesting to note the international nature of these materials handling systems suppliers. The parent companies of more than half are headquartered in Europe or Asia.
In fact, the idea for the list is the result of an international brainstorm. At the ProMat 97 materials handling show, Rein van der Lande of Vanderlande Industries Inc., a European-based supplier of conveyor-based systems, talked with the editors of Modern Materials Handling. He had put together a chart that showed alliances across the globe between the major systems players. This was of special interest to him because Japanese-based Daifuku Co., Ltd. had just acquired a minority interest in Vanderlande.
That chart and the discussions about it became the springboard for this list.
But that was just the warmup. The fun really started when Jim Apple of the Atlanta-based Progress Group joined the project. Apple is a long-time materials handling systems consultant with extensive international experience.
We had several lengthy discussions about the criteria that should be used to determine which companies belong on the finished list. Every time we started to get comfortable with one definition, someone would come up with an exception that required rethinking what had seemed so clear only minutes earlier.
In retrospect, our twisting and turning isn't all that surprising. The world of materials handling equipment and related software is diverse. And not everyone is a systems supplier or integrator.
For instance, some companies on the materials handling side make pallets while others build lift trucks or racks or dock equipment. On the information management side, there are suppliers of automatic data collection equipment and various types of software for the warehouse and shop floor. And then there are the integrators who are responsible for some highly successful systems but don't manufacture any materials handling equipment.
All of those companies are critically important to the success of materials handling systems. However, they are all specialists with tightly defined areas of expertise.
We were looking for those companies capable of a broader range of materials handling system capabilities. And we thought that to be included, each company should build at least one major type of materials handling equipment. After all, this is a listing of materials handling system suppliers.
The result was the following definition of who belongs on the list.
A system supplier uses full-time staff to design, install, integrate, and implement materials handling systems that include two or more of the following materials handling activities-transportation, storage/staging, picking, sortation, and data collection/information management. In addition, the company must manufacture or assemble at least one major system component (transportation device, storage/staging equipment, picking unit, sortation mechanism, data management collection device or information software). Additional components of each system can be supplied by other companies which serve as sub-system integrators. Systems suppliers must be active in the U.S. market.
As a result of an international survey, we knew which companies fit our systems supplier definition. But how should we rank them?
The survey asked for 1997 worldwide revenue from materials handling systems contracts including hardware, software, and services (design, install, integrate, and implement). It also asked for the number of systems installed in 1997 as well as the company's total installed base of systems.
We chose revenue in U.S. dollars as the best measure of a company's materials handling system activity. There was just too much variation in the size of systems to make a company's number of systems installed this year a valuable measuring stick.
We hope you find the list useful. It's certainly been an interesting tour of the world of materials handling for us. And we're already planning to make next January's list even better. M
Special thanks for help in the creation of the Top 20 list go to Jim Apple, The Progress Group, and Rein van der Lande, Vanderlande Industries, Inc.
Top 20 materials handling system suppliers worldwide
Rank-Company-Headquarters-Worldwide annual sales, US $-American business units
1-Mannesmann Dematic-Wetter, Germany- $2 billion-
Rapistan Systems, Grand Rapids, MI
Mannesmann Dematic, Cleveland, OH
2-Daifuku Co., Ltd.-Osaka, Japan -$1.5 billion-
Eskay Corp., Salt Lake City, UT
AutoSimulations Inc., Salt Lake City, UT
Auto-Soft Corp., Salt Lake City, UT
DAS Systems, Dallas, TX
3-Murata Machinery Ltd.-Kyoto, Japan-$600 million
Murata Automated Systems, Charlotte, NC
4-Jervis B. Webb Co.-Farmington Hills, MI -$400 million
Jervis B. Webb Co., Farmington Hills, MI
Ann Arbor Computer, Ann Arbor, MI
Control Engineering, Harbor Springs, MI
Webb Triax, Cleveland, OH
5-Pinnacle Automation, Inc.<-St. Louis, MO-$370 million
Alvey Systems Inc., St. Louis, MO
Busse Bros., Inc., Randolph, WI
The Buschman Co., Cincinnati, OH
McHugh Software Int'l, Inc., Waukesha, WI
Real Time Solutions, Inc., Napa, CA
Weseley Software Dev. Corp., Shelton, CT
White Systems Inc., Kenilworth, NJ
6-Swisslog AG- Aarau, Switzerland-$320 million
Transnorm System Group, Grand Prarie, TX
7-Constructor Group-Honefoss, Norway-$285 million
Richards-Wilcox, Inc., Aurora, IL
8-HK Systems, Inc.-Milwaukee, WI-$250 million
HK Systems, Milwaukee, WI
Integrated Systems, Milwaukee, WI
Unit Handling Systems, Hebron, KY
Logistics Systems and Services, Milwaukee, WI
9-Dearborn Mid-West Conveyor Co.-Detroit, MI-$210 million
Dearborn Mid-West Conveyor Co. Detroit, MI
10-The Interlake Companies, Inc.-Lisle, IL -$200 million
Interlake Material Handling, Inc., Naperville, IL
11-Vanderlande Industries B.V.-Veghel, The Netherlands-$200 million
Vanderlande Industries, Atlanta, GA
12-Sandvik AB-Sandviken, Sweden-$180 million
Sandvik Sorting Systems, Inc., Louisville, KY
13-Eisenmann Foerdertechnik-Holzgerlingen, Germany-$138 million
Eisenmann Corporation, Crystal Lake, IL
14-The Crisplant Group-Aarhus, Denmark- $120 million
Crisplant, Inc., Frederick, MD
15-Hytrol Conveyor Co., Inc.-Jonesboro, AR-$100 million
Hytrol Conveyor Co., Inc., Jonesboro, AR
16-FKI plc -Halifax, West Yorkshire, England- $70 million
Acco Systems, Warren, MI
Mathews Conveyor, Danville, KY
Acco Chain & Lifting Products, York, PA
17-Kardex AG/Remstar International -Zurich, Switzerland-$68 million
Remstar International Inc., Westbrook, ME
18-Computer Aided Systems, Inc.-Hayward, CA-$60 million
Computer Aided Systems, Hayward, CA
19-Munck Automation Technology-Newport News, VA-$55 million
Munck Automation Technology, Inc.,
Newport News, VA
20-SI Handling Systems, Inc.-Easton, PA -$42 million
Production and Assembly Systems, Easton, PA
Warehouse and Distribution Systems, Easton, PA
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