The forklift truck is a vital machinery to help workers raise and move heavy weight materials and products with efficiency and speed without straining their bodies. The way a company utilizes this machine could considerably affect its profitability.
A common storage method 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 on top of another to create a stack of products. This is a stable storage system and is recommended when handling large amounts of similar goods, or numerous pallets of similar dimensions and height. The drawback of this specific system is that it only enables access to the objects placed last, so it does not allow a First In First Out system.
It is important to have a pallet racking method which involves the stable storage of different 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 grow and change shape depending upon every day needs. This particular method requires aisles that are wide enough to enable a lift truck to freely access the racks and maneuver easily. The downside is that this specific technique means fewer pallets could be handled within the environment. This may not matter if there is sufficient space available.
Like Pallet Racking, the method known as Narrow Aisle Racking enables a Last In First Out or First In First Out method. It varies in that a special narrow forklift is utilized. This means that smaller areas are required between the aisles of pallets than in the Pallet Racking way. The benefit is that more goods could be kept in the same space. The disadvantage is that you will have to transition to a new truck if you already own a regular forklift truck. The expenditure of obtaining special machines might be a deterrent to implementing this system of storage.
Using your forklift to its fullest capability is important because it pays to consider your storage costs and retrieval costs of pallets. After that you can find out whether there are more effective ways to utilize your lift truck in order to increase the usable space of your units or to speed up the process. Greater effectiveness equals greater profitability.