Are hand pallet trucks a thing of the past?
Hand pallet trucks have traditionally been used to reduce the amount of effort and labor required to move goods in a storage environment and for loading and unloading goods in urban business areas.
The disadvantage of these types of handling equipment is that the user must exert manual effort to maneuver the pallets of goods, making dangerously heavy pallets difficult to control on sloped surfaces and pedestrian walkways.
The common solution has been the use of electrically powered pallet lifts that use traction batteries to control the driving and braking characteristics of the equipment. The electric lifting functions in this type of equipment also reduce the manual effort required to lift the goods through the pumping action necessary with this type of equipment.
However, the cost and size of electric pallet trucks have been a barrier for most small trucking companies in a very competitive market. This situation has now been addressed and brings with it the demise of the hand pallet truck.
New products on the market now are bridging the gap between the traditional type of lifting equipment and electrically operated pallet conveyors. Modern products from German manufacturers such as Hanselifter combine all the required functions of larger electric pallet trucks in a product no larger than a manually operated hand pallet truck. These smaller products improve productivity by allowing the user to move heavy pallets over 1.5 tons without any physical effort. Their smaller size makes them ideal for use in tight spaces, such as articulated truck trailers. Now a single operator can load/unload an entire 40-foot trailer of cargo in less than 10 minutes.
The cost issue has also been addressed with these new electric mini pallet trucks, with an average cost of less than 50% of the cost of larger electric pallet trucks.
This breakthrough in handling equipment technology may herald the end of traditional hand pallet trucks and save the efforts of our trusted delivery drivers who keep our stores and supermarkets stocked with produce for us cautious shoppers.
Additional benefits of these modern elevators are the economic advantages they bring to American and European manufacturers. A recent surge in low-priced manually operated lifting equipment imported into the US and Europe from the Far East has seen the market share of domestic lifting equipment producers decline, however, China manufacturers The US and India, for example, have been slow to produce comparable technology-driven products to the same standard.
