In the present era, forklifts are powered trucks tremendously used in industries for the transportation of bulky cargos, particularly steel and wood shipments. Apart from this usage, forklifts are also required for recycling operations. According to the reports, it is predicted that the forklift truck market is expected to grow by 500 thousand units in the coming 5 to 6 years.
How Many Forklifts Do I Need?
Wondering how many forklifts you need? It is one of the most common questions that arise in the mind of the material handling industry. Deciding how many forklifts you need for your warehouse or industry depends on various factors. Don’t worry; keep reading this blog to ponder upon parameters that you can consider concluding the need for forklifts you require.
Usually, the inventory you store, your company’s procedures and time requirements for transporting pallets are deciding criteria impacting the number of forklifts your company requires. Let us understand the parameters in detail:
Consider your products
The overall productivity of your warehouse is directly proportional to the stock you wish to transport. For a lighter inventory, even the smaller electric trucks are sufficient whereas high-capacity forklifts are preferred to carry over 20,000 pounds.
Calculate your productivity
Forklift operators do not spend all their time operating forklifts. They spend their time off the lift too performing other tasks such as preparing shipments and updating logs. So, It is important to keep in mind the overall productivity of the driver to determine the duration and number of pallets taken by him during each transportation a day. Keeping a record of these details you can monitor how many lifts you use in a day. You can do it by doing simple calculations like:
Multiplying the average number of pallets, they carry per day with the average time it takes in the transportation. You will get total minutes in a day your operators spend on lifting. After converting it into hours, divide the hour result by the number of forklift operators you have. This will help you in determining how many trucks you need.
Access your processes
There are different ways logistics prefer to carry out processes by forklifts. Some of them use different trucks and truck types to decide how many forklifts they should have. On the other hand, some others use burden carriers for ground transport and reserve lift trucks for large pallets.
Identifying the process followed by your company will be helpful to determine situations where an additional truck would improve the production rate.
Identify inefficiencies if any
Improperly trained or untrained operators are often the main reason behind the inefficiency of forklifts. To overcome such issues, train your workers properly so they could know the way of the best usage of the forklift. Identify each workflow to know where the training is required. This will ensure that work will be done with full efficiency. The correct way of racking, picking, and transportation jointly determine whether a machine is working to its full potential or not. Also, ensure the stock is properly stored i.e. the stock which is high in demand is stored in the front enabling quick loading and unloading of items.
Ways to efficiently maximize the productivity of existing forklifts
One of the effective ways to determine whether you need to increase the size of your fleet or not is to alter the way you use the forklift. You can follow a strategy by which at least one of your forklifts will be available at any one time without any hassle. For instance, some warehouses can assign each operator to their forklift while others can be approachable on demand.
Another way to increase efficiency is running multiple shifts throughout the day will maximize the efficiency of your current fleets. If you adopt such practices, it would be extremely cost-effective including maximum output from machines.
Another way that can financially benefit your business is to hire forklifts for rent during your busiest times when the demand increases significantly. Certain companies do offer long and short-term contracts, which you can choose from depending upon your business needs.
Rely on us for your Forklift needs
CFE is delighted to serve the number of clients at the cost of their satisfaction. We provide high-caliber material handling equipment having satisfactory efficiency. We offer premium quality forklifts along with a wide range of forklift attachments.
