Productivity is often determined by the way you carry out your warehouse operations with forklifts. Even for a low amount of work, there’s value in being able to complete a job quicker, safer, and more efficiently. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, time is money. And all our time is precious, right?
If you own a warehouse or a storage facility, can you imagine your operations without a forklift?
So how do you identify the key areas of improvement to get some of that “unused time” back and ultimately move more products faster, safer, and more efficiently?
While this subject might not be applied to every type of forklift and facility, the following list will help you improve your productivity with forklifts.
Using the Right Forklift for Your Operation:
Needless to say, but using the right forklift for the task is downright essential. Or you can say that it all starts with choosing the right forklift for your operation. There are different types of forklifts out there, but not all are the same when it comes to getting a specific job done.
For example, forklifts with shorter footprints can move easily in narrow aisles, minimizing the amount of time spent trying to get in and out of any congested area.
Faster lift/lower and travel speeds are also important to move products faster.
Do your operators get on and off the forklift over 10 times an hour? It means that you need to replace your sit-down forklift with a stand-up rider.
Talking about electric forklifts, the battery capacity, battery type, and the forklift’s voltage specifications can make a big difference in your performance and uptime.
Adding the Right Accessories to Your Forklift:
Operators feel more confident and ensure more productivity when they have the right tools at their disposal.
When properly suited to the work environment, productivity-improving features such as fork tip lasers, auto-tilt leveling, cameras, and height indicators can promote confidence by reducing guesswork involved in the job.
Features like the rear pillar assist grip with horn button can improve your ergonomic to a great extent, depending upon the work and environment of use. It provides a space within the operator’s compartment to place your hand during reverse travel and it is even equipped with a suitably placed horn button.
Adding a side-shifter or side-shifting fork positioner can also boost productivity. After all, they help you manipulate the forklift from inside the operator’s compartment, making the forks positioned quickly and easily to handle each load.
Layer pickers, for instance, can handle multiple layers of products at a time, minimizing time and effort spent manually transporting them across the warehouse, while single-double attachment can let you left two pallets at once.
Enhance Your Warehouse’s Design and Facility:
Learn how your operation is set up and where need improvement in terms of safety, efficiency, and productivity.
Over years, your warehouses can grow significantly and other changes which could lead to the development of new or different safety considerations and hassles as new services and products are developed.
Your warehouse can get bigger and higher, requiring a forklift that can place heavier loads at higher heights with faster speeds, while also ensuring safety with greater control and visibility.
Invest your time and resources to improve your storage methods and your raking design.
Checking the Battery Performance:
Lead-acid batteries are one of the most important, and in some cases, one of the most troubling aspects of having a forklift fleet.
When managed rightly, batteries directly enhance productivity via longer run times and lifecycles. For example, some forklifts are equipped with regenerative lowering technology that recollects energy as the mast is lowered and transfers it back to the batter.
Certain forklifts also come with larger battery boxes that ensure improved battery capacity.
You can use battery monitoring devices to get real-time data on battery activities, letting you take a holistic approach to better performance. This technology helps you find out which is the right charging method as well as which batter can work better in certain trucks.
So these are some ways you can use to improve your warehouse productivity with forklifts. And it starts with choosing the right forklift.
What do you think? Let us know by commenting below!
