The forklift truck is a vital tool to help employees lift and move heavy weight materials and goods with efficiency and speed without injuring their bodies. How a business uses this machinery can considerably affect its productivity.
A common storage technique is Free Stacking Pallets. This is a way to utilize your lift truck which is both easy and economical. Free Stacking Pallets is placing one pallet over another to make a stack of goods. This is a stable storage system and is suggested when handling huge amounts of similar goods, or many pallets of similar dimensions and height. The drawback of this technique is that it only allows access to the things put last, so it does not enable a First In First Out system.
Pallet Racking is a method which involves the stable storage of various sized pallets. Any pallet could be accessed at any time, which enables a First In First Out or Last In First Out system. It allows the rack to grow and change shape depending upon daily requirements. This technique requires aisles which are wide enough to enable a forklift to maneuver easily and to freely access the racks. The downside is that this method means fewer pallets can be handled within the environment. This may not matter if there is sufficient space available.
Like Pallet Racking, the technique referred to as Narrow Aisle Racking allows a First In First Out or Last In First Out method. It varies in that a special narrow forklift is utilized. This means that smaller spaces are necessary between the aisles of pallets than in the Pallet Racking way. The advantage is that more goods can be kept in the same space. The disadvantage is that you will have to transition to a different kind of truck if you already own a regular forklift truck. The expenditure of acquiring special machines may be a deterrent to adopting this specific system of storage.
It is important to utilize your lift truck to its full capability. It pays to analyze your time expenditure in storage and retrieval of pallets. Then you can determine whether there are more efficient means to utilize your forklift to increase the usable space of your units or to accelerate the process. Greater efficiency equals greater profitability.