The lift truck is a very important machinery to help employees raise and transport heavy weight materials and products with efficiency and speed without injuring their bodies. The way a company uses this machinery could considerably affect its profitability.
Free stacking pallets is the most popular storage system. Using this storage technique is both economical and easy for your forklift. Free Stacking Pallets involves positioning one pallet on top of another to create a stack of products. This is a stable storage technique and is recommended when handling huge amounts of similar goods, or many pallets of similar dimensions and height. The drawback of this technique is that it only enables access to the objects put last, so it does not enable a First In First Out system.
Pallet Racking is a system which involves the stable storage of different sized pallets. Any pallet can be accessed at any time, which enables a Last In First Out or First In First Out technique. It enables the rack to grow and change shape depending upon every day needs. This specific system needs aisles that are adequately wide to enable a forklift to maneuver easily and to freely access the racks. The downside is that this technique means less pallets could be handled within the environment. This may not matter 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 system. The difference in the technique is how the special narrow forklift is used. This means that smaller spaces are necessary between the aisles of pallets than in the Pallet Racking method. The advantage is that much more product can be kept in the same space. The downside is that you will have to transition to a new truck if you already own a regular forklift truck. The expenditure of acquiring special machines may be a deterrent to implementing this particular technique of storage.
It is vital to use your forklift truck to its full potential. It pays to analyze your time costs in retrieval and storage of pallets. Then you can determine whether there are more efficient ways to use your lift truck to increase the usable area of your units or to accelerate the process. Greater effectiveness means greater productivity.