Methods and systems for operating a material handling system

A material handling system comprising:

• one or more sub-systems for facilitating a movement of materials;
• a plurality of mode control tokens, wherein each mode control token comprises information pertaining to a particular mode of operation from among a plurality of modes;
• one or more sensing panels communicably coupled to the one or more of the sub-systems configured to:
• determine whether a mode control token from among the plurality of mode control tokens is within a vicinity of a respective sensing panel of the one or more sensing panels;
• and
• generate a signal indicative of the particular mode of operation associated with the mode control token when the mode control token is determined to be within the vicinity of the respective sensing panel;
• and
• a control unit configured to operate the one or more sub-systems based on the particular mode of operation associated with the mode control token.

A method for operating a material handling system, the method comprising:

• receiving, by a sensor unit, a signal from one or more sensing panels indicative of a signal reception state of each of a plurality of sensing panels, wherein the signal reception state indicates whether or not a mode control token is within a vicinity of the one or more sensing panels;
• receiving, by a control unit, the signal reception state from the sensor unit;
• determining, by the control unit, a mode of operation from among a plurality of modes for operating one or more sub-systems based on the signal reception state;
• and
• enabling or disabling, by the control unit, the one or more sub-systems in response to determining the mode of operation.