The invention discloses an intelligent material handling system. The intelligent material handling system comprises at least one handling vehicle, a center control host and an operation terminal. Each handling vehicle comprises a vehicle body, a motor control module, an industrial personal computer, a laser emission unit, a binocular camera and a wireless network communication module, wherein wheels and a driving motor are installed on the bottom of the vehicle body, and the wheels are driven by the driving motor; the laser emission unit and the binocular camera are installed at the front end of the vehicle body; the center control host is loaded with a database, and a map package and a navigation package are stored in the database; the center control host is communicated with the industrial personal computer through a network and issues a working instruction to the industrial personal computer; the operation terminal is communicated with the center control host through a network and used for sending a dispatching request to the center control host. The invention further provides an intelligent material handling method. By means of the intelligent material handling system and the handling method, effective linking of material forwarding among different zones or buildings within a site can be achieved, it is not required to lay a track, the space is saved, and flexibility and adaptive capacity of handling work are high.