a different type of vehicle to shuttle
loads to and from the racks.
▪ Lift trucks that may be at home elsewhere in the warehouse may be totally
inappropriate for loading and unloading
trailers. A standard two-rail mast that’s
designed to provide maximum visibility
will puncture the roof of the trailer
before the load reaches the necessary
height for travel and must not be used
for loading and unloading, says Simpson
of Clark. Designs that allow for simultaneous movement of load and rails have a
similar problem, he says.
▪ It sounds simple: For low lifts and
horizontal transport, a sit-down counterbalanced truck is the obvious choice;
if you have to go higher, then some type
of reach truck usually is best. But even
when the former is the case, if the aisle
width and the turning space at intersections are too tight for the bigger forklift
to maneuver efficiently, it will slow
throughput and create a safety hazard.
“You have to understand all of the trade-offs, such as aisle size versus productivity,” Smith says.
▪ If workers have to wait for a forklift
driver to pick up assembled pallets and
deliver them to another location nearby,
you’re wasting time and money while
creating a safety hazard, says Pedriana of
Big Joe. It might be better to substitute a
walkie stacker: Workers can use the
smaller vehicle as a lift table and then
deliver the finished pallet themselves to
the next location, rather than have an
operator drive heavy equipment where
people are working.
ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL
All of the experts consulted for this article have seen warehouses try to skimp
on costs by using one type of truck for as
many applications as they can. That
might work for a small facility that performs just a few activities for a limited
set of items, Comfort says. But in most
cases, it doesn’t pay to go that route.
For one thing, if a particular type of
lift truck doesn’t have the correct rated
capacity and/or the correct attachments
for every type of load it will carry, the lift
truck may become unstable and tip over,
resulting in injury or even death to the
driver and bystanders, says
Simpson. Furthermore, treating a
lift truck as a jack-of-all-trades
could place stresses on the lift
truck that it wasn’t designed to
handle, thereby shortening its life,
he says.
The more variety, volume, and
speed required, the more impor-
tant specialized lift trucks become
in order to avoid compromising
cost, space utilization, and efficien-
cy, Mason says. A high-throughput
facility, for example, could benefit
from using one type of lift truck
for loading and unloading trucks,
another for high-level order pick-
ing, and another for high-level full-
pallet putaway. It could even use
different trucks in the same area.
For example, low-level picking
could be done with inexpensive
end-rider pallet trucks, while the
more expensive counterbalanced
forklifts handle second- or third-
level picking.
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