The forklift truck is a very important machine to help workers lift and transport heavy weight materials and products with efficiency and speed without injuring their bodies. How a business utilizes this tool can significantly affect its productivity.
A popular storage method is Free Stacking Pallets. This is a way to utilize your lift truck that is economical and easy. Free Stacking Pallets is placing one pallet on top of another to make a stack of products. This is a stable storage technique and is suggested when handling huge amounts of the same product, or many pallets of the same height and dimensions. The drawback of this specific technique is that it just enables access to the things placed last, so it does not allow a First In First Out system.
It is vital to have a pallet racking technique which involves the stable storage of various sized pallets. Utilizing a Last In First Out or First In First Out technique, would allow for easy access of any pallet. It allows the rack to grow and change shape depending upon every day requirements. This system requires aisles that are wide enough to enable a lift truck to maneuver easily and to freely access the racks. The disadvantage is that this system means fewer pallets can be handled within the environment. This might not make a difference if there is adequate space available.
Similar to Pallet Racking, the technique called Narrow Aisle Racking enables a Last In First Out or First In First Out technique. It differs in that a special narrow forklift is used. This means that smaller areas are required between the aisles of pallets than in the Pallet Racking technique. The advantage is that much more product could be stored in the same area. The downside is that you would have to transition to a different kind of truck if you already own a regular lift truck. The cost of acquiring special machinery may be a deterrent to adopting this technique of storage.
It is important to utilize your forklift truck to its full capability. It pays to analyze your time expenditure in storage and retrieval of pallets. After that you can determine whether there are more effective ways to use your lift truck to speed up the process or to increase the usable area of your units. Greater effectiveness equals bigger productivity.