When the time comes to choose the right warehouse truck, it is a great idea to figure out how high you intend to lift your loads, how much you have to lift, how much space you have to work in and how far you want to travel. These considerations will influence your purchasing decision and help decipher which forklift truck is the ideal one out there to meet all your requirements and meet your overall expectations.
Normal Aisles
The most cost-effective trucks are pedestrian stackers. These machinery are ideal for working in normal width aisles and completing regular stacking tasks inside a warehouse. They could easily lift loads of less than 750kg and could stack them to heights of roughly 4.5 metres. Another type known as rider stackers could successfully lift cargo to around 6 metres.
Reach trucks are yet a different option to consider. They give you much greater load and lift capacities and several models come complete with telescopic forks. This feature enables you the ability to stack pallets two deep. For extra flexibility in handling goods, there is a multi-way and a 4-way reach truck which as the name implies, could be driven in four directions. These models are specifically suitable for handling long and bulky objects like for instance planks, boards and piping.
Counterbalance trucks are best suited for traveling longer distance and are a great option for stacking jobs, specially block stacking. They are also a great option for stacking cargo that weigh more than 2 tonnes and free stacking.
A Tight Squeeze
The aisle space in a high-density storage operation will usually be a lot narrower, whilst the heights could be quite higher as well. The Man-up telescopic lift trucks are best used in high-bay, narrow aisle stores. They provide the operator or driver a good view of the stacking process. There are also models referred to as man-up combi trucks. These are fairly versatile in that they can be used for both order- picking and stacking jobs. They can be driven all over the warehouse or utilized in narrow aisles.