Machines and machinery specified for material transport and handling are the representatives of an important and attractive part of the mechanical engineering. Design of these machines integrates knowledge and skills from the various areas of the mechanical engineering, as well as from other industrial branches.

The transport and handling machines are representing a specific area in the framework of the whole large spectrum of the engineering production. Machines and machinery belonging to the transport and handling technology create an unavoidable integrated part of all branches in the industrial production. There is one special characteristic feature of these machines: despite of a fact that they are occurring in almost all operations of technological processes, in production and assembly procedures within the frame of a global production chain in the various industrial branches (e.g. in the engineering, building, chemistry, food processing, metallurgy, mining, power supply, etc), the transport machines are not able to increase the qualitative characteristics or operational properties of the final products, neither the value in use of them. However, an implementation of the transport and handling procedures into the manufacturing process is resulting in rising of the investment and production costs, as well as other expenditures. The statement of this fact seems to be a paradoxical phenomenon at a first sight, but this relevant reality emphasizes importance of a reasonable choice of the suitable transport and handling equipment, together with a correct decision-making in relation to the selection of a concrete material handling application. The choice of a concrete material handling technology is influencing not only the design and technological dispositions of a certain production process, but it is impacting also the economical aspects of the industrial production, namely the investment and operational costs and as a final result, the ultimate price of the given product.

There is well-known a statistical fact, which is presented often among the professional community, that almost one third of all employees, who are working in the industrial area, is employed in the branch of material transport or handling and one fifth of the total input production costs are spent for realisation of the transport or handling operations. These facts are typical for economies in the countries with a well-developed, advanced industrial production. Of course, such numerical data are presented only for guidance; they are varying according to the concrete kind of the industrial branch, but in some way or other they underline significantly a relevancy of the transport and handling machinery taking into consideration the technical and operational aspects together with the economical criteria.

The spectral variability of the transported materials depends on their mechanical and physical properties primarily with respect to the state of matter of them and afterwards the additional material attributes are specified according to other criteria in details.

A sufficient amount of information describing important characteristic features of the transported material enables to propose an optimal transport-handling machine or machinery, which is suitable for the given purpose, considering all relevant constructional and operational aspects or which is able to optimise projection process of the global transport-handling chain in the given real situation.

It is also necessary to dispose of a large information database covering the whole extensive spectrum of the machines and machinery specified for the transport and handling purposes in order to undertake qualified decisions in the projection process of the transport and handling systems.

The practical everyday experiences are providing a lot of very expensive lessons for many designers and developers about an uncompromising fact that an inconsequent knowledge or neglecting of the mechanical and physical properties of the transported materials, as well as disrespect of the operational and constructional characteristics of the transport machines can doom the project already in its preparative phase. Afterwards, the final calamitous result is realisation of an incorrect final technical solution. The real consequence of such unfavourable situation is a partial or total malfunction of the transport-logistic chain, together with following economical losses.

The Department of Machine Design, Transport and Logistics at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, from the Technical University of Košice, has an ambitious aim, in accordance with its possibilities and professional orientation, to contribute to the elimination of the above-mentioned negative phenomena that are occurring in the industrial practice. The pedagogical-educative and scientific-research activities of this Department are oriented towards education of professionals in the area of transport machines, namely in the engineering branch of study Transport Technics and Logistics. There are at disposal two study programmes for wondering students: Transport Machines and Machineries; Machines and Machinery for Building Industry and Agriculture. The highest level of the university studies, i.e. the doctoral level, is offered at this Department for the talented graduates of the engineering degree.

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