Allied Equipment

Carts & Trucks

While not frequently thought of as material handling equipment, two wheelers, four wheelers and six wheelers are some of the workhorses in every operation. They are inexpensive, durable and readily available from a number of sources. Many times these carts are customized to accommodate particular items such as automobile engines, baked or frozen goods, etc. These carts are made from a variety of materials including steel, hardwoods, metal wire and plastic depending on their application. 

Two wheeled hand carts are most useful when lifting and transporting stacks of boxes and floor stored or stacked products. The tongue of the two wheeler is slipped under the load and the load and cart are tilted back on the load wheels for transport. A simple, one person operation. Two wheelers are available for special purpose applications such as moving 55 gallon drums, furniture and stacks of crates, as well as the plain vanilla variety. Since manual tools like this are rarely in the right place at the right time, more are better than a few. 

Four wheeled hand carts, often called flatbed carts, are used for hand stacking items or products on them at one location and manually removing them at another location. These carts come in a wide range of sizes and capacities. In general, the bigger and harder the caster wheels, the easier they will roll or push. Hard wheels, such as hard plastic, however, are harder on your floor than a hard rubber or polyurethane, as they do not cushion the load or give as they encounter debris or cracks in the floor. The right capacity cart is better than an over capacity cart. Again, these carts can be customized to handle special products such as pipe, coils of wire, etc. 

Six wheeled hand carts are very similar to the four wheeled carts except two ridged casters are located midway between the front and rear casters on each side of the cart. These center two casters are also slightly lower than the other four casters so the cart rocks front to back on the center wheels. This is done to reduce the turning radius of the cart. A six wheeled cart will almost turn 360 degrees in it’s own length. Obviously, these carts are used where the aisles are narrow and space is at a premium. All other aspects of the six wheel hand cart are the same as the four wheeled carts. 

Shelf carts, as you would imagine, are generally smaller in footprint than flatbed carts but are equipped with multiple levels or shelves for the placement of smaller parts and cases. Parts or cases are not stacked one upon another but are individually placed in their own position on the cart. This permits the organization of the materials on the cart for selection, packing or put away purposes. This feature is also handy for check-in purposes or for order selection of multiple orders where each order can have it’s own space or shelf making it easier to group the parts together. The size and number of shelves are infinitely variable as are the materials these carts are made from. Weight is a serious consideration when asking people to push or pull these carts, both empty and loaded. 

Cage carts are similar to both flatbed carts and shelf carts but different. These carts have four sides, one is generally hinged or is split vertically and hinged, to allow loading and unloading yet secures the entire load for transport. This securing of the load may be for stability or security purposes. These can be enclosed flatbed carts or shelf carts depending upon need. Again, weight is a serious consideration and much affected by material selection. 

Manual pallet jacks are designed to allow one person without expensive equipment to move a pallet of product short distances or on a mezzanine where powered equipment is not available. The lifting forks are very much like the forks on a fork lift, but only raise a few inches, enough to lift the pallet clear of the floor. These pallet jacks with their loads are then pulled by the operator from place to place. Most of these pallet jacks are hydraulically operated by the operator pumping the handle up and down to raise the load off the floor. 

They have a pair of large steering wheels near the jack handle and smaller load wheels under the ends of each fork. We have had best success with polyurethane load and steering wheels on both concrete and mezzanine floors. Pallet jacks come in a variety of sizes and capacities. The most common size is 48" long forks which are 27" wide overall and 5,000 pound capacity. Many manufacturers produce these jacks at a very affordable price, so having plenty should not be a problem. 

If you have any questions or interest in any type of carts or trucks for your operation, please contact us today.