In any type of warehouse, before any product can be stored properly, it needs to be transported. The problem is that any warehouse that doesn’t specialize in just one type of product will have to try and accommodate a large number of items with differing shapes and sizes. This may sound like an obvious requirement for any industry that specializes in this field, and while that may be true, in order to take into account everyone’s needs, a lot of specialized lifting equipment is needed.
A good example of this is the drum lifting equipment. The drum lifting equipment is of course used in order to transport substances or liquids which are stored in cylindrically shaped “drum” containers. Much like most other types of lifting equipment, it can be either electric or manual. Both of these have a practical use as the electric type is usually better for the quick transportation of heavier loads in greater bulk, whereas the manual lifters are usually better for more confined spaces. Most of the drum lifting equipment is suitable for both steel and plastic drums, designed to fit around both no matter the width and used in a large number of different industries.
The most common type of lifting equipment would have to be the ones that are capable of lifting pallets, and seeing as how nearly every item in warehouses is stored on pallets, there are many to choose from. There is the pallet truck that has two prongs that are perfectly spaced to fit between the openings on the underside of the pallet. There are the forklifts, which are the most used device in any warehouse as the two prongs on the front can be adjusted to lift items of all sorts of different sizes and dimensions and not just pallets. And there are also specialized items designed to specifically work in tandem with pallets like the pallet elevators or even the steel drum palletizer, which is a piece of drum lifting equipment that has the sole function of loading and unloading drums from the corner of pallets.
And finally, there are the jib cranes and the lift trolleys. I mention these two together because the types of object that one is perfect for are the ones which the other is completely incompatible with. To explain – the jib cranes are used for bags or any other items that don’t have a solid bottom, while the lift trolleys can be used with any type of product that can be stacked or placed on them and stay balanced. The jib crane is composed of a winch that is either attached to a single overhanging arm or to a gantry crane, and the lifting trolley is basically just a sturdy flat movable surface that uses a scissor mechanism to lift the items placed on top of it.