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 important specialized lift trucks become
in order to avoid compromising cost, space utilization, and efficiency, Mason says. A high-through-put facility, for example, could benefit from using
one type of lift truck for loading and unloading
trucks, another for high-level order picking, 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.
Ultimately, the objective is to select the best
truck for the application in terms of safety, efficiency, and total cost of ownership. Making the
right choice depends on understanding not only
what your lift trucks are doing now, but also what
you want them to do. “You have to know your
warehouse operations, your operational metrics,
and what spells success for you,” says Smith.
That’s why it helps to think of a lift truck as part
of an overall business process, such as fulfillment,
Pedriana says. The more efficient that process is,
the more profitable it will be. If you scrutinize
each of the tasks required to carry out that process and then apply differentiated equipment to
optimize them, he says, the lift trucks you choose
will be potential profit generators, not just an
expense. c
TOBY GOOLEY IS A SENIOR EDITOR AT DC
VELOCITY.
Usually lift truck buyers are evaluating
equipment for an existing warehouse or
DC. But what about when they’re spec’ing
for a facility that hasn’t been built yet? That
can be a golden opportunity to ensure that
the facility and the trucks are truly made for
each other, says Kenro Okamoto, a product support specialist at Toyota Material
Handling, U.S.A., Inc.
You might think warehouse layout designers would always consider equipment capabilities and limitations in their plans, but
that’s not the case, Okamoto says. For
example, many companies try to squeeze
as much racking with as much height as
possible into a new building, yet that may
make it impossible for forklift operators to
efficiently handle the volume and type of
products required, he says.
“I’ve seen warehouse designs that did
not allow for safe maneuvering,” Okamoto
recounts. “You need enough space between
aisles that trucks can turn in either direction, and you have to consider that operators will need to back up, move forward,
pick up or put away product, and even
make reverse turns in certain areas.” For
that reason, the layout designer may have
to reduce the number of aisles.
A process called “application engineering” can prevent such problems by matching the measurements for the planned
facility and material handling equipment
with the right type of lift trucks to achieve
maximum efficiency. This type of analysis
also prevents costly conflicts. Okamoto
cites the example of a proposed design
with a low door height and high racking—a
combination that could lead to problems if
it turned out there were no lift trucks that
could collapse low enough for the planned
doorways and still reach high enough in
the racks. An engineering analysis, however, would likely uncover the conflict early
enough in the process to allow the building
designer to tweak the plans.
MADE FOR EACH OTHER
