At their European distribution centre in Belgium, Skechers uses a fleet of 169 UniCarriers trucks to manage their materials handling in their 118,000m2 warehouse and ship out thousands of customer orders every day.
Warehouse automation is a hot topic in the materials handling industry at the moment. Stories about companies like Amazon's financial successes are often accompanied by videos showing swarms of robots shuttling goods to human workers who carry out fewer and fewer manual tasks.
Owning and operating a forklift truck naturally involves many different costs. There's naturally the upfront cost of the machine itself, or regular payments if it's financed, as well as costs for routine or avoidable service and maintenance, and downtime.
The wide world of materials handling-specific terms can be difficult at the best of times, especially for someone who may be new to or not so familiar with the industry. One of the more misleading terms is turnover – for most people, a fairly common word which refers to the amount of money taken in by a business during a certain period.
Even the most well-constructed, stable reach truck will experience mast tilt when stacking at high heights. When you're lifting hundreds of kilograms many metres off the ground, it's impossible to avoid the mast tilting and swaying back and forth when it reaches the correct height.
Depending on the nature of the operation and the goods being stored, warehouses can sometimes be split into 'free' and 'defined movement' areas. The daily tasks of materials handling in these areas can look very different, and specialised equipment may be needed. Let's take a look at what these terms mean.
For some businesses, the amount of money spent on fixing damage to forklifts caused by poor or careless driving can be painfully high. These costs not only make the operation less efficient and eat up budget, they're also completely avoidable.
Sometimes, only the smallest change is needed to make a big difference to your materials handling operation — especially when it affects such a time-consuming operation as order picking (which is also the most expensive process in the handling chain).
Even if a forklift is developed to be as safe and ergonomic as possible, it can still be a dangerous tool if not used correctly. Almost all businesses that deal with materials handling will have a safety policy, but a busy, fast-moving warehouse will always be an environment where safety is highly important.
A forklift's sticker price is an important figure, but it's often smaller than the much larger set of costs which arise over the truck's lifetime from things like service, driver costs and financing.
