The lift truck has become such an important piece of equipment found and utilized in most warehousing and industrial operations, ever since its introduction to the market more than 90 years ago in the 1920's. Among the forklift's pioneers, Clark has grown to become an industry top supplier in the material handling industry. Other well-known names in the making of these equipment comprise: Toyota, Mitsubishi, Cat, Yale, Hyster and Nissan.
Hyster has grown to become amongst the most popular units of forklifts in the industry. As a matter of fact, in some regions, the word "Hyster" is synonymous with forklift. Different other names for this industrial lifting machinery comprise: high/low, lift truck, jitney, stacker truck and fork truck.
It was in the 19th century that the machinery ancestors of the lift truck was first made. At this time, battery-powered, small models were made for the purpose of transporting traveler's baggage in Pennsylvania at the Altoona train station. In WWI, various kinds were developed in England specially to be utilized in the material handling business. These equipment evolved as a solution to the lack of manpower at that time.
The modern equivalents come in a variety of sizes and configurations. There are the large truck-mounted forklift units which are also referred to as sod loaders and then the opposite end of the spectrum has small hand truck units. There are also a line of automated versions known as forklift automated guided vehicles which are practically robotic in nature. These units were developed as a way of lowering operational expenses and to improve production.
A regular lift truck is able to use a huge range of attachments which are capable of being added for a variety of particular functions. The motors can be internal combustion or IC units, running on propane, diesel or gasoline, or there are battery operated options which require regular charging. Typical warehouse models will normally be rated to lift between around 1 and 5 tons.
The forklift has become a priceless part in the material handling business. Many of these models are utilized every day all over the globe to perform tasks that used to require a lot more man-power. Operators should take stringent training courses in order to operate these heavy machines safely and legally. A lot of workers have better health overall and longer careers now due to their not having to lift objects manually anymore because the forklifts are capable of handling those situations now instead.