Ride on pallet trucks & pallet damages

[abarnett]

Hi all,
In a new role on a site with ride-on pallet trucks.
Observing a lot of fragments of wood around the warehouse from pallets - unsure specifically where they are coming from but guessing it is relating to the use of these...
having not worked with them before I'm looking to understand if this a normal "side effect" of their use or am I looking at a competency issue?

Cheers,

Andy

[Alexis]

Bump.
Can anyone offer some assistance to Andy please?
Many thanks if you have the time to reply. Always appreciated.

[Jack Kane]

My initial reaction would be the forks are not lowered enough before driving them into the pallet. If they do this, the forks will push the support slats and base slats away from each other causing them to prise apart, become loose, then get broken up through use.

Do you have a picture of the pallets and the broken fragments?

[Pete B]

Hi Andy
I used to be a forklift instructor, from working with many truck types including the ride on pallet truck, there are a number of reasons why this is happening:

- The forks too long or too short and riding on the bottom slats or when lifting/lowering, the action is damaging the pallet.
- The operator not inserting the forks far enough in or too far in and riding on the bottom slats or when lifting/lowering, the action is damaging the pallet.
- Incorrect pallet type used, damaged pallets being selected over good pallets etc.
- Operator not lining up correctly before fork entry and bashing the front of the pallet.
- Fork arms too thick - Wrong truck type for the job.
- Operator being slap harry and causing pallet to collide with other pallets, racking etc.

Pallet design should allow free entry and if you look at a chep pallet as opposed to a standard white pallet, the chep one will have ride up edges on the bottom slats.

If the fragments of wood are laying near racking, consider looking at how pallets are positioned in racking or positioned near racking. A good instructor will train the staff correctly, however, its the behavious that can come into question there on in which is down to the company. Get the free download of the new ACoP L117, which offers guidance on training & monitoring. Just a note, are the damaged pallets being placed in the racking at Height? staff should not be doing this and pallets should be swapped over, make sure there is a 50 to 75mm gap between rack uprights and the pallet and likewise between pallets to avoid racking damage. If i can help further, please ask.

Pete

[Jack Kane]

Brilliant Pete

An excellent response for future readers of the forums as well.