When the time comes to choose the right warehouse truck, it is a great idea to figure out how high you intend to raise your cargo, how much you need to raise, how much space you need to work in and how far you want to travel. These considerations will truly affect your buying decision and help decipher which forklift truck is the best one out there to meet your needs and meet your overall expectations.
Normal Aisles
The most inexpensive trucks are pedestrian stackers. These equipment are ideal for working in standard width aisles and completing ordinary stacking jobs inside a warehouse. They are capable of easily lifting cargo of less than 750kg and can stack them to heights of about 4.5 metres. One more type called rider stackers could successfully lift loads to roughly 6 metres.
Reach trucks are yet a different choice to consider. They give you much greater lift and load capacities and some models come complete with telescopic forks. This characteristic allows you the ability of stacking pallets two deep. For added flexibility in goods handling, there is a 4-way and a multi-way reach truck which as the name implies, could be driven in four directions. These models are particularly best for handling long and large objects such as planks, boards and piping.
Counterbalance trucks are best suited for traveling longer distance and are a good alternative for stacking jobs, specially block stacking. They are also an ideal choice for free stacking and stacking cargo that weigh more than 2 tonnes.
A Tight Squeeze
If you are working in a high-density storage operation, the aisle space would normally be much narrower and the heights you will want to reach to would likely be much higher. Man-up telescopic lift trucks function well in high-bay, narrow aisle stores. They offer the driver or operator a good view of the stacking process. There are other kinds called man-up combi trucks. These are quite versatile in that they can be utilized for both stacking and order-picking tasks. They could be driven throughout the warehouse or used in narrow aisles.