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Life Cycle of a Custom Material Handling System: Concept to Decommissioning

A custom material handling system has a life cycle that runs from the first concept study, through years or decades of service, to the day it is de-energized, dismantled, and removed from the plant. UTEC Industrial designs, engineers, machines, fabricates, and installs custom material handling systems for aerospace and heavy industry from its Spokane Valley, WA facility, integrating Allen-Bradley PLC and motion control with in-house CNC machining, heat treating, and stress relief. This article follows a heavy handling system through that whole life, with the emphasis on what a purchasing project can leave out: the costs that fall after handover, the energy control that governs service work, the controls that must be kept current, and the planning that makes decommissioning safe. A handling system is built along one chain, design → engineering → parts machining → fabrication → assembly → weld fatigue → stress relief → drives → controls → tuning → monitoring, and each link of that chain decides something about how the system is operated, modified, and finally taken apart.

What are the stages in the life cycle of a custom handling system?​

Systems engineering describes a life cycle as a sequence of stages. The INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook, 5th edition, describes systems engineering as a development process that proceeds from concept to development, production, utilization, support, and eventual retirement, and defines the discipline as enabling the successful realization, use, and retirement of engineered systems. For a heavy handling system those six stages read as follows:

INCOSE stageCustom handling system example
ConceptPlant need defined, alternatives studied, requirements written
DevelopmentDesign and engineering of structure, drives, and controls
ProductionMachining, fabrication, stress relief, assembly, factory test
UtilizationInstalled and running in the customer's process
SupportMaintenance, spares, repairs, controls upkeep, modifications
RetirementDecommissioning, dismantling, reuse or disposal

Two standards sit behind this vocabulary. ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2023 defines the system life cycle processes, and ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-1:2024 gives guidance for life cycle management, establishing a common framework for describing life cycles and their individual stages that complements 15288. The INCOSE handbook's contents list typical life cycle stages and decision gates, with Transition, Operation, Maintenance, and Disposal among its named technical processes.

As engineering reasoning, the practical point for an owner is that the purchasing project covers only the first three stages and the start of the fourth. A coil car in an aluminum mill, a log-deck transfer in a sawmill, or an instrument-handling fixture at an observatory can spend most of its life in utilization and support, and end in a retirement stage that the original project team may never manage (INCOSE 2023, Ch. 1 and Ch. 2 contents; ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-1:2024; ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2023).

Why does the design stage fix so much of a system's whole-life cost?​

Largely because the design sets how expensive the system will be to build, operate, maintain, and remove; that link is engineering reasoning, and the INCOSE handbook gives an illustration of it. It reports a 1993 Defense Acquisition University statistical analysis of US Department of Defense projects: by the time approximately 20% of the actual costs had been accrued, over 80% of the total life cycle cost had typically been committed. INCOSE presents the curve notionally, and adds that issues are less costly to fix when they are identified early.

That figure comes from defense programs, and it is an illustration, not a measured rule for custom machinery. As engineering reasoning, the direction of the effect still applies to a heavy handling system, because many of its whole-life costs are set by drawings and specifications long before the first plate is cut:

  • the load envelope and duty stated at concept set the structure, the drive size, and the inspection regime for the life of the system;
  • the controller platform chosen at design sets the programming software, spares, and skills the plant must keep;
  • the energy-isolation points designed in, or left out, set how every future maintenance task and the final dismantling are done;
  • a section or joint detail chosen for fabrication cost can set the weld inspection interval for the rest of the machine's life.

The requirements document that fixes these decisions is covered in Writing a User Requirement Specification (URS) for Custom Machinery; this article follows what those decisions mean in the later stages (INCOSE 2023, Ch. 1 §1.2 and Figure 1.4).

Which life-cycle costs fall after the system is handed over?​

The Material Handling Institute's Life Cycle Cost Principle, the tenth of its Ten Principles of Material Handling, defines life cycle costs as all cash flows that occur between the time the first dollar is spent to plan or procure a new piece of equipment and the time that equipment is totally replaced. Its cost elements run past acceptance, through operating costs and maintenance and spare parts to reuse value and ultimate disposal, and it calls for a long-range plan for replacing the equipment when it becomes obsolete.

NIST's HB 135e2025, in its simplified LCC formula for building-related projects, carries the end of that list as a term of its own: Res, the present-value residual value (resale, scrap, or salvage value) less disposal costs. For a heavy handling system that term matters: a transfer car or positioner may be resold or relocated at retirement, or it may leave only scrap value after the cost of dismantling it. The full cost-element list, the NIST formula, and the discounting method are set out in Total Cost of Ownership and ROI for Custom Material Handling; here the point is that retirement is a cost line from the start (Material Handling Institute 2026, Principle 10; Kneifel and Webb 2025, NIST HB 135e2025, §5.1.2).

How is decommissioning designed in at the concept stage?​

The NASA Systems Engineering Handbook states it directly: the system capabilities to support de-integration and disposal need to be engineered into the system from the concept definition phase. Its SE product maturity table, Table 3.0-1, shows decommissioning and disposal plans in preliminary form at the Preliminary Design Review, the Critical Design Review, and the System Integration Review, and baselined at the Operational Readiness Review, before the system goes into service.

As engineering reasoning, for a custom handling system, designing for decommissioning is in large part designing for energy control. ISO 14118:2017 specifies requirements for designed-in means to prevent unexpected machine start-up so that people can intervene safely in danger zones. It applies to all energy sources: electrical, hydraulic, and pneumatic power, stored energy from gravity or compressed springs, and external influences such as wind. The ASSP technical brief for ANSI/ASSP Z244.1-2024 lists a section of that standard, §7, on designing machines, equipment, and processes for the control of hazardous energy, whose subsections include component isolation, energy-isolating devices, information for use, stored and residual energy, and design for verification of de-energization. As engineering reasoning, a system designed to those headings can be maintained and, eventually, dismantled without improvisation.

Two further frameworks bear on the same design-stage choice:

  • Prevention through design. ASSP describes ANSI/ASSP Z590.3-2021 as usable for a life-cycle assessment and a design model that balances occupational safety and health goals over the lifespan of a facility, process, or product.
  • Defense system safety. MIL-STD-882E w/Change 1 (2023), the US Department of Defense standard practice for system safety, sets a design order of precedence: eliminate the hazard, alter the design, add engineered features or devices, add warning devices, and only then rely on signage, procedures, training, and PPE (NASA/SP-2016-6105 Rev2, §5.2 and Table 3.0-1; ISO 14118:2017; American Society of Safety Professionals 2025, Contents §7; ANSI/ASSP Z590.3-2021; MIL-STD-882E w/Change 1, §4.3.4).

Each link of the chain, design → engineering → parts machining → fabrication → assembly → weld fatigue → stress relief → drives → controls → tuning → monitoring, leaves a mark that the operating and retirement stages inherit:

  • Design and engineering: the rated load and duty become the limits every future modification is checked against; a later request to carry a heavier mill roll set or a larger airframe section starts from them.
  • Parts machining: bearing seats, wheel fits, and gear interfaces are what a rebuild restores, and their drawings and tolerances decide whether a rebuild is practical.
  • Fabrication and weld fatigue: the welded joint details and the load cycles they were checked against set how often the frame must be inspected and how much fatigue life remains when a plant wants to extend service.
  • Stress relief: stress-relieving a frame before final machining helps its machined interfaces stay in position, so that alignment made at installation can hold in service.
  • Drives and controls: the structure, motors, and gearboxes can outlast the PLCs, drives, and network modules installed with them; IEC 62402:2019 provides requirements and guidance for obsolescence management, from policy and plan to strategies that minimize obsolescence during design.
  • Tuning: a servo or VFD axis tuned for one load may need retuning when the load changes. Rockwell Automation's Kinetix 5700 manual notes that autotuned loop bandwidths depend on the application and can require adjustment once the motor and load are connected.
  • Monitoring: trended data is the evidence for the decision to rebuild, replace, or retire.

UTEC Industrial stress-relieves and machines the welded frames of the handling systems it builds before assembly, a step that helps keep machined interfaces stable over a long service life (IEC 62402:2019; Rockwell Automation 2198-UM002E-EN-P, Kinetix 5700).

What has to pass from commissioning into the operating life?​

The handover is the point where the builder's knowledge becomes the owner's, and anything not handed over can be lost to later stages. The loop-check, commissioning, and acceptance-test standards that sequence the handover, and IEC/IEEE 82079-1:2019 for the information for use, are set out in Custom Machinery Project Lifecycle: Concept, Design, FAT, Install, Support. For a heavy handling system, the information that carries the system through its operating life means operating and maintenance manuals, lockout points and energy-source information, drive parameter files, and the PLC and HMI programs in editable form. The NASA handbook's Table 3.0-1 baselines operational procedures at the System Integration Review and requires them, updated, at the Operational Readiness Review, the same review at which it baselines the decommissioning plans. UTEC Industrial performs factory acceptance testing and on-site commissioning, so these handover records can be checked against the delivered system (IEC/IEEE 82079-1:2019; NASA/SP-2016-6105 Rev2, Table 3.0-1).

What does the operating stage require to keep service work safe?​

In the utilization and support stages, service work on a heavy handling system is where people reach into the machine, and in the US a federal rule sets the framework for that work. OSHA 29 CFR 1910.147 covers the servicing and maintenance of machines and equipment in which the unexpected energization or start-up of the machines or equipment, or the release of stored energy, could cause injury. It requires an energy control program:

  • Program. Paragraph 1910.147(c)(1) requires a program of energy control procedures, employee training, and periodic inspections, so that before any servicing or maintenance the machine is isolated from the energy source and rendered inoperative.
  • Annual inspection. Paragraph 1910.147(c)(6)(i) requires a periodic inspection of the energy control procedure at least annually.
  • Testing and positioning. Paragraph 1910.147(f)(1) sets the sequence for temporarily removing lockout to energize a machine to test or position it: clear tools and materials, remove employees, remove the devices, energize and test, then de-energize and reapply energy control. Jogging a positioner to reach a bolt or indexing a transfer car to a service position falls under this sequence.
  • Shift changes. Paragraph 1910.147(f)(4) requires specific procedures during shift or personnel changes to keep lockout protection continuous, which matters on a multi-shift rebuild.

The voluntary consensus standard takes a different position on two points. According to ASSP's technical brief, ANSI/ASSP Z244.1-2024, approved by ANSI on 26 November 2024, makes alternative methods a co-equal choice with lockout and tagout; the standard has based alternative methods on risk assessment and the hazard control hierarchy since the revision published in 2004. Since the 2016 edition, its committee has also rejected the split between normal production operations and service and maintenance as an artificial distinction. Z244.1 is voluntary; 1910.147 is the legal requirement, and the two should be kept distinct (OSHA 29 CFR 1910.147-1989, §1910.147 paragraphs a.1, c.1, c.6 and f; American Society of Safety Professionals 2025).

How do sensing, controls, and monitoring change over a system's life?​

The intelligence layer of a heavy handling system can change several times while the steel stays the same. Encoders, load cells, limit switches, drives, and the PLC program all age on a different clock from the frame, and each change to them is a change to the system's safety functions and tuning:

  • Monitoring as evidence. NIST's survey of US discrete manufacturers associates heavier preventive and predictive maintenance with less downtime and fewer defects; the figures, which are survey associations rather than causal results, are set out in the total cost of ownership article. As engineering reasoning, they support trending motor current, brake operations, bearing temperature, and drive faults on a handling system.
  • Metrics. SMRP's Best Practices, 7th edition, publishes more than 70 standardized maintenance and reliability metrics and guidelines, which give a plant a common basis for measuring the support stage.
  • Retuning after change. A drive retuned for a heavier fixture, a replaced motor, or a new load spectrum may need the tuning step repeated with the load connected; the Kinetix 5700 commissioning procedure includes a tuning step for each axis.
  • Safety functions. Emergency stops, guarded-zone entry, and safe speeds run on safety-related control parts designed to ISO 13849-1:2023. A controls migration or a new interlock touches those parts, so the safety functions are part of the modification scope, not an afterthought.
  • Program structure. Logix 5000 controller tasks can be configured as continuous, periodic, or event, and a periodic task executes automatically at a preconfigured interval. As engineering reasoning, keeping interlock and motion logic in periodic tasks, and documenting that structure, makes a later controls upgrade easier to verify.

UTEC Industrial, a Rockwell Automation Recognized System Integrator, programs Allen-Bradley ControlLogix and CompactLogix systems and builds UL 508A panels, a platform plants use to run and upgrade their handling controls (Thomas and Weiss 2020, NIST AMS 100-34, Executive Summary; SMRP Best Practices, 7th ed., 2026; Rockwell Automation 2198-UM002E-EN-P, Kinetix 5700; ISO 13849-1:2023; Rockwell Automation 1756-RM094N-EN-P-2025).

When is a handling system modified, and when is it retired?​

Modification and retirement are both decisions about the rest of the system's life, and each triggers requirements of its own. On modification, OSHA 1910.147(c)(2)(iii) requires that whenever replacement or major repair, renovation, or modification of a machine is performed, its energy isolating devices be designed to accept a lockout device. As engineering reasoning, a rebuild of a 1980s transfer car or a major controls retrofit on a mill's coil handling line is such a modification, so its energy isolating devices must then be designed to accept a lockout device, even if the rest of the machine is unchanged.

On retirement, the NASA handbook's Phase F description names two circumstances that, as engineering reasoning, transfer to plant equipment:

  • Economics. Technological advances may make it uneconomical to continue operating the system either in its current configuration or an improved one.
  • Failure. On flight projects of long duration, closeout may proceed according to established plans or may begin as a result of unplanned events, such as failures.

As engineering reasoning, the first amounts to a life-cycle cost comparison, in which residual value less disposal cost is one of the terms, and the second is the reason a decommissioning plan should exist before it is needed; a system that fails in place, such as a transfer car stranded in a furnace bay or a positioner holding a part, has to be made safe and removed under time pressure. Automation added during a mid-life upgrade, such as a robot loading a conveyor, adds its own energy sources and safety interfaces to the eventual decommissioning scope. UTEC Industrial integrates FANUC robotic cells, including vision, with a FANUC design and engineering partner (OSHA 29 CFR 1910.147-1989, §1910.147 paragraph c.2.iii; NASA/SP-2016-6105 Rev2, §3.9; Kneifel and Webb 2025, NIST HB 135e2025, §5.1.2).

How is a heavy handling system safely de-energized and dismantled?​

As engineering reasoning, dismantling carries a high stored-energy risk, because the machine is being taken apart in an order it was never designed to run in. The two US documents differ in how they name it. OSHA's 1910.147 defines servicing and maintenance as activities such as constructing, installing, setting up, adjusting, inspecting, modifying, and maintaining or servicing machines, including lubrication, cleaning, unjamming, and tool changes; construction employment is outside its scope under 1910.147(a)(1)(ii)(A). The scope of ANSI/ASSP Z244.1-2024, as reproduced in ASSP's technical brief, lists erecting, installing, constructing, repairing, adjusting, inspecting, unjamming, set-up, testing, troubleshooting, cleaning, dismantling, servicing, and maintaining, and it excludes construction and demolition operations covered by ANSI/ASSP A10.44.

Where 1910.147 governs the work, its energy rules are:

  • Stored energy. Paragraph 1910.147(d)(5)(i) requires all potentially hazardous stored or residual energy to be relieved, disconnected, restrained, and otherwise rendered safe after lockout devices are applied. On heavy handling equipment that means raised tables and lift decks, counterweights, loads held by brakes, charged hydraulic accumulators, compressed springs in spring-applied brakes, and rail cars on a grade, all of which fall under the energy types ISO 14118:2017 names.
  • Reaccumulation. Paragraph 1910.147(d)(5)(ii) requires verification of isolation to continue until the work is complete if stored energy could reaccumulate to a hazardous level, as a hydraulic circuit can when a valve drifts.
  • Verification. Paragraph 1910.147(d)(6) requires the authorized employee to verify isolation and de-energization before starting work.

As engineering reasoning, the failure mode to plan against is dismantling in the wrong order: cutting a frame member or releasing a brake before the load it restrains has been lowered, blocked, or removed turns stored gravity energy into an uncontrolled movement (OSHA 29 CFR 1910.147-1989, §1910.147 paragraphs a.1, b, d.5 and d.6; ANSI/ASSP Z244.1-2024; American Society of Safety Professionals 2025, §1.1 Scope; ISO 14118:2017).

Who coordinates decommissioning, and what records should survive it?​

Decommissioning can involve a mixed crew: plant maintenance, electricians, riggers, the original builder or a successor, and demolition or scrap contractors. OSHA 1910.147 sets the coordination rules that apply while the equipment is still covered by it:

  • Outside personnel. Under 1910.147(f)(2), whenever outside servicing personnel are engaged, the on-site employer and the outside employer must inform each other of their lockout or tagout procedures, and the on-site employer must make sure its employees understand and comply with the outside employer's program.
  • Group lockout. Under 1910.147(f)(3), a crew uses a procedure giving each worker protection equivalent to a personal lockout device, with one authorized employee assigned overall responsibility when several crews or crafts are involved, and each worker attaching a personal device to the group lockout device or lockbox.

The NASA handbook describes the planning and records side of the same stage. During closeout, a separate closeout plan should describe the decommissioning and disposal of program assets; the disposal can involve the disassembly or repurposing of terrestrial equipment used in manufacturing and assembly, and capture and archiving of system data for future analysis also happens in this phase. Its Phase F activities include disposing of the system and supporting processes, documenting lessons learned, and archiving data.

For a heavy handling system the records worth keeping are the drawings and parts lists, the inspection and load-test history, the maintenance and failure records, the drive and PLC backups, and the reason for retirement. Those records are the starting point for the replacement's requirements, whether the next system is for a steel mill, a mine, a pulp and paper mill, or an aerospace test facility (OSHA 29 CFR 1910.147-1989, §1910.147 paragraph f; NASA/SP-2016-6105 Rev2, §3.9 and §5.2).

Related Articles

References​

  • INCOSE. INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook: A Guide for System Life Cycle Processes and Activities, 5th ed. John Wiley & Sons, 2023.
  • ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-1:2024: Systems and software engineering — Life cycle management — Part 1: Guidelines for life cycle management. International Organization for Standardization, 2024.
  • ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2023: Systems and software engineering — System life cycle processes. ISO/IEC/IEEE, 2023 (Ed.2).
  • Material Handling Institute. The Ten Principles of Material Handling. MHI, 2026 (undated web documentation, accessed September 2026).
  • Kneifel J, Webb D. Life Cycle Costing Manual for the Federal Energy Management Program, NIST HB 135e2025. National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2025.
  • NASA. NASA Systems Engineering Handbook, NASA/SP-2016-6105 Rev2. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2016.
  • ISO 14118:2017: Safety of machinery — Prevention of unexpected start-up. International Organization for Standardization, 2017.
  • American Society of Safety Professionals. Technical Brief for ANSI/ASSP Z244.1-2024: An Overview of the Voluntary Consensus Standard: Control of Hazardous Energy – Lockout, Tagout, and Alternative Methods. ASSP, 2025.
  • ANSI/ASSP Z244.1-2024: The Control of Hazardous Energy – Lockout, Tagout and Alternative Methods. American Society of Safety Professionals, 2024.
  • ANSI/ASSP Z590.3-2021: Prevention through Design Guidelines for Addressing Occupational Hazards and Risks in Design and Redesign Processes. American Society of Safety Professionals, 2021.
  • U.S. Department of Defense. MIL-STD-882E w/Change 1: System Safety. DoD, 2023.
  • IEC 62402:2019: Obsolescence management. IEC, 2019 (Ed.2).
  • Rockwell Automation 2198-UM002E-EN-P (2018): Kinetix 5700 Servo Drives User Manual. Rockwell Automation, 2018.
  • IEC/IEEE 82079-1:2019: Preparation of information for use (instructions for use) of products — Part 1: Principles and general requirements. IEC/IEEE, 2019 (Ed.2).
  • OSHA 29 CFR 1910.147-1989: The Control of Hazardous Energy (Lockout/Tagout). Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 1989.
  • Thomas DS, Weiss BA. Economics of Manufacturing Machinery Maintenance: A Survey and Analysis of U.S. Costs and Benefits, NIST AMS 100-34. National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2020.
  • Society for Maintenance & Reliability Professionals. SMRP Best Practices, 7th ed. SMRP, 2026 (undated web documentation, accessed September 2026).
  • ISO 13849-1:2023: Safety of machinery — Safety-related parts of control systems — Part 1: General principles for design. International Organization for Standardization, 2023.
  • Rockwell Automation 1756-RM094N-EN-P-2025: Logix 5000 Controllers Design Considerations. Rockwell Automation, 2025.

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