It is quite key for several businesses to examine the process of choosing a lift truck. For instance, will your company choose consistently the same unit for your dock work or warehouse? If this is so, you could be missing out on a more effective forklift. There could be various other units on the market which offer less fatigue to operators and enable more to get accomplished. You may be able to take advantage of loading trailers in a more effective manner. By doing some evaluation and research, you can determine if you have the best machinery to meet all of your needs. By reducing operator exhaustion, you can significantly increase your performance.
Some of the important factors to consider when determining forklift units which deal with particular issues consist of:
Trailer Loading Frequency:
If your shipping department only loads out a few box trucks or semi-trailers per week, then you probably won't need an expensive lift truck to complete the job. A cheaper walkie-rider or walkie model will be able to deal with the job if: A 4500 to 6000 pound capacity is adequate and you do not need to stack loads inside the trailer. Lastly, you must consider whether or not the transition to the dock leveler from the dock floor and into the trailer is not too jarring for the operator since the small load wheels should travel over the dock plate.
If your shipping facility is consistently loading trailers however, a stand-up end control unit could make more sense over a walkie-rider or a walkie model. These battery-powered forklifts easily fit into a standard 108 inch trailer door. Their masts allow in-trailer stacking. These forklifts provide a model capacity range from 3000 to 4000 lbs.
Operator Duties:
Every business has a slightly different system for material handling. In some circumstances, some forklift operators not only load trucks in the shipping department, but store inventory on racks, replenish the manufacturing line, handle the paperwork connected with the cargo, attach and scan bar codes and other tasks. Usually, the forklift operators who are always on and off of their lift trucks in their shifts find it much quicker and less tiring to exit a stand-up control model, as opposed to a sit down kind.