The forklift truck is a vital machinery to help employees lift and transport heavy weight supplies and goods with speed and efficiency without straining their bodies. How a business uses this machinery could considerably affect its profitability.
A common storage technique is Free Stacking Pallets. This is a way to use your forklift that 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 recommended when dealing with large amounts of similar goods, or numerous pallets of the same dimensions and height. The drawback of this specific method is that it only allows access to the things put last, so it does not allow a First In First Out system.
Pallet Racking is a technique which involves the stable storage of different sized pallets. Any pallet can be accessed at any time, which allows a First In First Out or Last In First Out technique. It allows the rack to grow and change shape depending upon daily requirements. This system needs aisles that are wide enough to allow a forklift to maneuver easily and to freely access the racks. The downside is that this particular system means less pallets can be handled within the environment. This might not matter if there is sufficient space available.
Similar to Pallet Racking, the technique referred to as Narrow Aisle Racking enables a First In First Out or Last In First Out method. It varies in that a special narrow lift truck is used. This means that smaller areas are necessary between the aisles of pallets than in the Pallet Racking way. The benefit is that more goods can be stored in the same space. The downside is that you will have to transition to a different type of truck if you already own a regular forklift truck. The cost of obtaining special machines may be a deterrent to implementing this particular technique of storage.
Utilizing your lift truck to its fullest capability is important because it pays to consider your storage costs and retrieval costs of pallets. Afterward you could determine whether there are more efficient ways to use your forklift in order to increase the usable area of your units or to speed up the process. Greater effectiveness equals bigger productivity.