The lift truck is a vital tool to help workers raise and transport heavy weight materials and products with speed and efficiency without injuring their bodies. How a company utilizes this machinery can considerably affect its productivity.
Free stacking pallets is the most common storage system. Using this storage method is both easy and economical for your lift truck. Free Stacking Pallets involves placing one pallet over another to make a stack of goods. This is a stable storage technique and is suggested when dealing with huge amounts of similar product, or many pallets of the same dimensions and height. The drawback of this system is that it only allows access to the things put last, so it does not enable a First In First Out system.
It is vital to have a pallet racking method which involves the stable storage of various sized pallets. Using a Last In First Out or First In First Out technique, will allow for easy access of any pallet. It permits the rack to change shape and grow depending upon daily needs. This system needs aisles that are sufficiently wide to allow a lift truck to maneuver easily and to freely access the racks. The downside is that this system means fewer pallets could be handled in the setting. This might not make a difference if there is sufficient space available.
Narrow aisle racking is similar to pallet racking in that it enables for a First In First Out or Last In First Out system. The difference in the method is how the special narrow forklift is used. This means that smaller spaces are required between the aisles of pallets than in the Pallet Racking technique. The advantage is that more product could be stored in the same space. The disadvantage is that you will have to transition to a different type of truck if you already own a standard lift truck. The cost of obtaining special machinery might be a deterrent to adopting this particular technique of storage.
Utilizing your lift truck to its fullest potential is important because it pays to consider your retrieval costs and storage costs of pallets. Afterward you could find out whether there are more efficient ways to utilize your forklift to speed up the process or to increase the usable space of your units. Greater efficiency equals greater productivity.