Tom Andel

Fatter truck loads need beefier lift trucks
January 23, 2008

Trucks on state highways are getting heavier. The Federal legal weight limit is also likely to increase from 80,000 to 97,000 pounds to make better use of this nation’s truck fleets and their fuel economy (see related article in Modern's sister publication, Logistics Management). When the DOT says trucks can haul more weight, that means shippers can put more weight on a pallet. What does that mean for materials handlers?

You’ll continue to welcome increasingly heavier loads to your docks. The question is, will your lift trucks handle these heavier loads? Jim Shephard, president of Shephard’s Industrial Training Systems, told me this trend toward heavier truckloads doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have to invest in a new fleet of beefier lift trucks. You may be able to re-counterweight what you have.

Shephard told me of a company that changed its product line so that a key component added several hundred pounds to its total weight. The problem was, this company’s warehouse didn’t have lift trucks big enough to handle these new products efficiently. Shephard proved to this company it could counterweight the existing chassis and get bigger lift trucks out of their existing fleet. This gave them a couple more years of use out of their lift trucks and a little extra time to plan for their next lift truck investment.

Jim Shephard is one of those guys who can answer every question with a story. I’ve known him for better than 15 years—ever since OSHA started beefing up its Powered Industrial Truck Operator Training guidelines. He’s been giving me a lot of these stories lately since we started publishing our new series on “Lift Truck Tips” this year. I’ll keep passing these stories on to you as the year goes on.

Posted by Tom Andel on January 23, 2008 | Comments (0)