DC Velocity - April 2012

Bulk forklift container: The P-433 Ship Shape bulk forklift container is a rigid, reusable bulk container from Meese Orbitron Dunne Co. Its standard 44- by 44-inch footprint fits many bulk-bag fillers. As a result, the Ship Shape container allows companies to use rigid, reusable packaging with their existing filling equipment lines instead of flexible bulk bags.

Using bulk bags in material handling and filling processes can cause many potential problems. When a bulk bag is being filled, the sidewalls can collapse, which can result in downtime, product waste, and cleanup troubles. Additionally, bags can shift during transport by a forklift, which can cause accidents. Finally bag tying, stitching, and sealing can be cumbersome. Using a rigid container instead of a bag eliminates these problems.

The P-433 Ship Shape container is a heavy-duty, one-piece bin made from 100-percent waterproof polyethylene. It can be used to move, handle, and store bulk chemicals and pharmaceuticals, food/beverage ingredients, mineral and rock products, and other granular, free-flowing dry products. The P-433 shipping container can handle payloads of up to 700 pounds and comes with a lid.

The Ship Shape P-433 bulk handler is designed with four-way lift access. It comes in 16 standard colors, with custom colors also available. Optional accessories include industrial-strength casters, fork safety tubes, and tamper-evident closures. (Meese Orbitron Dunne Co., www.ShipShapeContainers.com)

“If ads were forklifts, it would require 100% of this space, blue, yellow & green, to advertise a conventional forklift.” “It would require only 75% of this space, yellow & green, to advertise a reach truck.”

Manifesting and invoicing software: With the release of its Food Perform 8. 8 cloud-based mobile software, Airclic has improved its software’s ability to provide manifesting and invoicing solutions for food distributors. The software’s new “Quick Turn” functionality allows delivery drivers who drive multiple local routes in the same day to use the solution to reconcile deliveries, record deliveries or pickups at each stop, and reconcile returns before reloading and departing on their next route. This helps distributors track the chain of custody for their products and achieve 100-percent accuracy on invoicing and manifesting transactions, says Airclic.

In addition to Quick Turn, the latest product enhancements to Food Perform include exception handling for individual items on a pallet without breaking the pallet, the ability to view weight and cube for a stop and route, support for variable bar-code lengths, control over driver-performance reports, and enhanced security on integration and Web services. (Airclic, www.airclic.com)

“Advertising the Flexi only requires 60% of the space, just the green! Turn your blue and yellow into green ($$$) with a Flexi.”

Pallet truck: Nissan Forklift Corp. has introduced the Manager’s Special pallet truck, a truck specially designed to withstand the harsh conditions of the meat processing industry while also meeting the industry’s food safety regulations.

The Manager’s Special pallet truck has an optional clear-coat finish that contains an antibacterial additive to minimize microbial food safety hazards. This additive eliminates more than 99 percent of harmful micro-organisms, including E. coli and salmonella. The coating prevents microbes from growing on the surface of the pallet truck and provides an extra layer of protection on the forks, undercarriage, platform, handle arm, lifting carriage, and load backrest.

The pallet truck is designed to perform in coolers, wet rooms, and freezers at temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Its switches and electronic components are sealed, which eliminates the need for thermostats and heaters on the truck. This design feature reduces maintenance needs, says the manufacturer. Features like auto-lift, which helps keep forks from dragging, and stainless steel pins and linkage also make this pallet truck well suited to harsh processing environments, according to the company. (Nissan Forklift Corp., www.nissanforklift.com)