Adapting forklift trucks and stackers ...

... can offer great benefits

Author: Dee Jones/01 July 2019/Categories: HEALTH & SAFETY, Creating safe working conditions, PRODUCT GUIDANCE, Stock handling, Height access, WORKPLACE ADVICE, Gain elevation, Goods movement

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Businesses are often faced with the need to provide new or additional materials handling or access procedures in order to deal with trading expansion, health and safety implementation or new legal requirements. It is very easy to overlook the existing equipment that you already have within your organisation, that could easily be adapted to suit the task in hand. One such item of equipment is a forklift truck or stacker truck. These reliable items of materials handling equipment have probably been purchased to facilitate the lifting and movement of goods and materials that are more likely than not stored on traditional pallets.

Forklifts and stackers are very efficient and reliable at handling palletised goods, but did you know that they can easily be adapted to carry out many other popular industrial tasks along with some not so popular ones! By using their existing forks, they can lift a variety of attachments that are designed to carry out many different jobs. In some cases by removing the forks completely and retro fitting the truck with other attachments, a whole list of new operations become available.

automotive industry trailer

We can look here at some of the more popular tasks that your forklift/stacker could be used for:

Handling longer loads by fitting fork extensions.
Handling wider loads by fitting four fork attachments.
Towing trailers or trains of trucks by adapting your forklift accordingly.
Handling and tipping loose materials, waste product and consumables with self-tipping skips.
Crushing waste product with a skip compactor.
The bottom emptying of waste products.
The scooping up or ploughing of loose product, waste and even snow by fitting the a scoop attachment.
The cleaning of yards, warehouses and factory floors by fitting sweeper attachments.
Gaining height access by fitting an access maintenance platform.
Moving goods and loads into tight areas or on/off machines by fitting hook or jib attachments.
Handling wheelie bins by fitting a wheelie bin attachment.
Handling, lifting and moving coils, carpets or products with cores by fitting a pole attachment.
Handling, lifting and positioning of drums by fitting one of many specialist drum lifting attachments.
Handling, lifting and positioning of cylinders by fitting a cylinder cage.
Handling and lifting unpalletised products by fitting a platform across your forks.
The rotation of products by fitting reel lifters.

There are some great attachment products that could help you to easily achieve a given aim without the unnecessary expense of purchasing a totally separate item of equipment. Affordable attachments can help you to provide your workers with a better way of working. The drum and cylinder handling attachment ranges are particularly helpful when dealing with a product that traditionally has often been manhandled over the years.

tipping skip attachment

As you can see, there are great benefits to adapting the normal working practices of your forklift/stacker truck. These we can generally summarise as being the following:

Significant cost savings on not having to purchase new equipment.
Minimal re-training of operatives.
Opportunities to look at better working practises.
Health and safety benefits to make your workplace safer.
Increased productivity in automating otherwise manual handling tasks.
Saving dedicated floor space with unnecessary equipment.

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