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Very Narrow Aisles in a Warehouse

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Pros and Cons of Very Narrow Aisles

What are the Pros and Cons of Very Narrow Aisles?  Here are some the reasons warehouse managers incorporate man up Swing Reach Turret trucks in their operations.

A turret truck is defined as a pallet carrying counterbalanced fork truck with an articulating carriage.  By turning the carriage sideways and not the entire truck, the turret truck can store and retrieve pallets in a very narrow aisle (66″) or 10″ greater than the width of the pallet length+turret head (which is also generally equal to the width of the truck).

Pros

  • Up to 50% space savings
    • Reducing aisles from 14 feet to 5.5 feet
    • Even more dense storage is possible by combining push-back pallet racking.
  • Eye level pallet retrieval
    • Increases pallet retrieval accuracy reducing damage to rack and product
    • Increases speed of pallet transactions
    • Easier product identification and bar code scanning
    • Reduced product and rack damage during pallet transactions
  • Guided and defined travel path (unguided turrets also exist)
    • Guidance allows for increased productivity.
      • 32+ pallet moves per hour is not uncommon with this lift truck (highly productive)
    • In a very narrow aisle, and being only 5″-9″ away from the products stored in the pallet racking, some turret trucks can be used for high level orderpicking.

Cons

  • Heavy
    • The majority of turret trucks exceed 16,000 when fully loaded, therefore guidance is strongly advised
    • With this weight, the turret is not suited for dock work unloading trailers.
  • 2-stage masts
    • Most designs include a 2-stage mast, therefore attention must be paid to the collapsed height the traveling under tunnels in racking or warehouse doorways.
  • Expensive
    • The average price for a turret truck is twice or 3 times the cost of an electric counterbalanced forklift, i.e. $100,000
  • Floor flatness required
    • Due to the high productivity capabilities, the turret truck requires a floor levelness and flatness in the defined direction of travel to operate smoothly at heights.  The term that refers to flatness and levelness with respect to very narrow aisle lift trucks is called F-Min.  The higher the F-Min, the faster a VNA lift truck can operate (higher productivity) and the safer the operation.
  • Guidance (portability)
    • Wire and rail guidance for very narrow aisle turret trucks represents an added expense that must be invested into the warehouse floor.  Should a company need to move in order to expand, the buried wire portion of the wire-guidance must be left behind.  Rail can be removed, but installation is not cheap.
    • The increased capital investment trade-off for increased productivity is sometimes difficult to articulate and justify.
  • Maintenance
    • 8% or more of the truck’s price will need to be earmarked for maintenance and repair annually.
    • Due to the complex nature of the trucks design, a deep relationship with the servicing dealer will be necessary.  You are now business partners.  Is your servicing dealer a group you would want to be business partners with?

Of course, the best source for the pros and cons of very narrow aisle turret style lift trucks is the manufacturers, their servicing dealers and their current users (customers) of the equipment.  Visit current users and ask for references.

Have we missed anything?  Leave your comments below.