As its name suggests, the Spice Hunter Co. is a distributor of unique and hard-to-find spices. Unfortunately, moving spices with manual pallet trucks at the company's San Luis Obispo, Calif. warehouse was more difficult than it needed to be.

The physical strain and effort needed to push and pull the manual pallet trucks used during order processing was causing operators to experience declining morale and fatigue. In addition, all employees carried clipboards to manually record each transaction, then enter the data again into the company's software.

A switch to electric pallet trucks equipped with onboard terminals and bar code scanners streamlined Spice Hunter's warehousing operations. Electric pallet trucks offer both an ergonomic solution to manual lifting as well as portable workstations to improve productivity.

The addition of the onboard data management equipment allows em-ployees to use this portable order processing station to pick, scan, and pack each of their orders while inputting data directly into the self-checking software program. Warehouse manager Pat Winkle saw an instant increase in the order fulfillment rate with the new order processing system and increased employee morale.

The pallet trucks used by Spice Hunter have the ability to maneuver down aisles as narrow as six feet. They feature a brushless AC-drive motor and maintenance-free battery pack that lower maintenance requirements. Winkle was so impressed with his initial purchase for his warehouse he bought an additional two trucks for his production department.