At the small end there are the ever reliable pallet lifters and single person platforms operated manually. At the big end there are large platform units capable of carrying an entire rugby team including reserves and operated mechanically.
All have their purpose. Here we will give you three very good applications for lift platforms and tell you why the way you may be doing things now is just plain wrong.
Loading and unloading trucks
The hard way: Stack a hand trolley with two or three boxes, and wheel it to its destination, which is probably at the far end of your warehouse, return and repeat until the truck is empty. What's wrong with this? Plenty, in fact, it's a time in motion disaster.
If a truckload comprises 400 boxes and a hand trolley can carry three boxes at a time, your workers will make 133 trips up and back, quite possibly covering many kilometres in the process. Think of the time that takes. Think of what else they could achieve if the time that job took was cut by about 128 trips.
The easy way: Roll a hydraulic lift trolley with a large platform up next to the truck. Stack it with boxes, wheel the trolley to its destination, stack directly onto racks if required. Repeat, but only a few times. What's right with this? Massive time savings for a start. Also, if your dock doesn't have a sunken loading bay, goods would normally have to be manhandled to the ground. Your lift trolley can be raised flush with the edge of the truck for easy unloading (and loading).
Stacking shelves
The hard way: Position a ladder against the racks. Climb the ladder with one box. Place the box in the rack. Descend. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Again, a time in motion disaster, not to mention a potential disaster in other ways with workers climbing up and down ladders carrying boxes.
The easy way: Load your lifting platform with boxes leaving room at one end for one or two workers. Raise the platform to a comfortable height next to the rack. Unload onto rack. Lower. Easy, fast, and just as importantly, safe.
Working at heights
The hard way: Any work involving heights is work to be avoided. Heights of any kind are only asking for trouble unless you have the right equipment to get workers up and down safely. Ladders are not that equipment. They are intrinsically dangerous things where feet and hands need only get slightly out of sync for calamities to occur. Climbing safely up and down them is hazardous enough, let alone actually trying to do something on them.
The easy way: A hydraulic lift for now obvious reasons: a flat, reliable platform, a wide range of height options, safety rails and easy portability across short distances.
