Simple, smarter moves for narrow aisle storage and order picking

Even short moves involving heavy loads can pose a physical strain for production workers using manual pallet jacks. Duratrack, a manufacturer of track and trolley systems, found that deploying electric pallet jacks (Big Joe) effectively takes the strain out of those moves while keeping the materials handling equipment compact and simple to operate.

Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based Duratrack’s systems are used within overhead rolling applications such as sliding doors, truck bodies, industrial curtain applications and overhead festooning systems for cranes. Most products are fabricated from sheet or coil steel, resulting in heavy loads of materials and finished parts moving through the company’s factory floor.

Duratrack owner Russ Scott began looking for better solutions to his materials handling needs in 2012, with the aim of making load movements easier for workers and storing goods efficiently in a narrow-aisle environment.

“We had manual pallet jacks to move our skids around or pallets around,” says Scott. “Some of the pallets can weigh up to 4,000 pounds, and we had operators that either got strains pushing them or had a hard time and had to get somebody to help them. We tried a Big Joe powered pallet jack, and it is just so easy. Basically, you just push a button and you walk backwards or forwards in any direction you need to go.”

Scott reports that Duratrack’s production workers like the simplicity and powered load-moving functionality of the electric pallet jacks. “The people were thrilled,” he says. “We started off buying one, and we’ve ended up buying four.”

In addition to deploying D40 electric pallet jacks to move materials horizontally in production areas, another issue Scott wanted to address was warehouse storage. Duratrack stores skids of components and finished product on the floor and on 16-foot high racking set in narrow aisles. The narrower aisles posed a challenge for existing equipment.

“We have two stand-up reach forklifts,” says Scott. “The problem with that is that it’s a little more difficult for operators to learn to use and feel safe with [these units]; and they’re more expensive,” Scott says.

To find appropriate equipment, Scott turned to his dealer, Illinois Material Handling, who recommended the Big Joe PDSR reach stacker as a solution for narrow aisle storage tasks.

“It’s an easy machine to learn, so people feel safe using it,” Scott says. “The reach feature helps because the aisles are tight, so it makes it easy to have the forks extend out when you approach the racks. The nice thing is, it’s still stable when the forks are at the full extension. The PDSR makes us more efficient.”

Duratrack purchased one PDSR in 2014, and based on its success, bought another one six months later. Based on the successes of the D40s and PDSRs, Scott again turned to Big Joe to streamline his shipping department with the purchase of two J1 Joey task support vehicles to handle order fulfillment tasks.

“[With] very tight turn radiuses on those machines, they’re very easy to maneuver,” says Scott. “It saves an awful lot of time for the operator or shipping personnel to go up to the rack where they need the product, to rise up to 16 feet and grab the small number of parts they need, come back down and go to shipping and pack and ship it.”

The equipment supports a safe work environment, since it’s easy to learn how to operate and maneuver in tight spaces. “It makes my employees and operating environment safer to work in,” Scott says. “The equipment is well designed and is compact … not larger than needed.”