The lift truck is a very important machine to help employees raise and transport heavy weight materials and goods with speed and efficiency without straining their bodies. How a company makes use of this tool can significantly affect its productivity.
Free stacking pallets is the most popular storage technique. Using this storage method is both economical and easy for your forklift. Free Stacking Pallets is placing one pallet over another to create a stack of goods. This is a stable storage technique and is recommended when dealing with numerous pallets of the same height and dimensions or huge amounts of the same product. The disadvantage of this system is that it just enables access to the things put last, so it does not enable a First In First Out system.
It is vital to have a pallet racking system which involves the stable storage of various sized pallets. Using a Last In First Out or First In First Out system, would enable for easy access of any pallet. It allows the rack to change shape and grow depending upon daily requirements. This particular technique requires aisles that are sufficiently wide to enable a lift truck to freely access the racks and maneuver easily. The disadvantage is that this particular method means fewer pallets can be handled within the setting. This may not make a difference if there is sufficient space available.
Narrow aisle racking is similar to pallet racking in that it enables for a Last In First Out or First In First Out method. The difference in the system is how the special narrow forklift is used. This means that smaller spaces are required between the aisles of pallets than in the Pallet Racking technique. The advantage is that much more product could be kept in the same space. The disadvantage is that you will have to transition to a different type of truck if you already own a standard forklift truck. The cost of obtaining special equipment might be a deterrent to implementing this technique of storage.
Utilizing your forklift to its fullest capability is vital as it pays to consider your storage costs and retrieval costs of pallets. After that you could determine whether there are more effective ways to use your forklift to increase the usable area of your units or to accelerate the process. Greater efficiency means bigger productivity.