What is a High Reach Forklift?
The term high reach best describes the purpose of all forklifts that are classified as high reach forklifts.
They are designed to safely and efficiently lift and retrieve loads from extreme heights that traditional counterbalance forklifts or order pickers are unable to access.
With the boom in online shopping and e-commerce in recent years, high reach forklifts have become the materials handling unit of choice thanks to their ability to operate in narrower aisle widths and high reach allowing warehouses and companies to maximise the usage of their available vertical storage space.
This week’s blog looks at the three benefits of the two most common types of high reach forklifts reach trucks and turret trucks and how they can benefit warehouses and businesses.
High Reach Forklift Models
Reach Trucks
Turret Trucks
Reach higher racking and shelving
The greatest benefit of high reach forklifts such as the reach trucks and turret trucks is their ability to safely and efficiently lift and retrieve pallets and goods from extreme heights up to 18m high.
This higher lift height compared to standard counterbalance forklifts allows companies to fully maximise the available vertical storage space with extended racking or even high rise mezzanine levels.
Ability to operate in narrow aisles
Not only can high reach forklifts such as reach trucks and turret trucks retrieve pallets from extreme heights they are also able to operate in narrower aisles compared to standard counterbalance forklifts.
With reach trucks and turret trucks able to operate in aisle widths as narrow as 2.4m wide compared to standard counterbalance forklifts that need a minimum aisle widths of 3.7m to safely operate.
High reach forklifts are able to assist companies increase the available storage in warehouses thanks to the narrowing of aisles allowing for additional racking to be installed.
Double deep racking ability
Specialist high reach trucks can be specially fitted with pantograph masts to allow for double deep racking to be utilised.
The pantograph mast allows the units tynes to extend out further than the units support legs to allow the safe lifting of pallets that have been stored behind another pallet.
Double deep racking enables warehouses to use racking that allows the storage of two or sometimes four pallets together doubling available storage space.
Adopting the use of high reach forklifts can provide major benefits to warehouses and businesses to be able to maximise their available storage space to safely store more pallets and products to meet the growing demands of their customers.
Expanding businesses that are looking to go through the potentially costly task of moving their business operations to a larger premises may not have to it they replace existing materials handling units with space saving high reach forklifts.
For assistance in procuring the best high reach forklift for your operation call our team of materials handling experts on 13 22 54 or fill out a contact form and we will reply as soon as possible.