About Larry Willett Expertise Specialist in 3rd Party Warehousing and eCommerce Fulfillment, Generalist in handling, storage and distribution of most products and commodities including Retail Goods, Food Products, and HazMat
Experience 25 years in retail distribution, both private and 3rd party. President of 3rd party logistics provider in Los Angeles for 10 years
Organizations Warehouse Education Research Council, Council of Logistics Management, International Warehouse Logistics Assn.
Expert: Larry Willett Date: 11/18/2005 Subject: Travel time
Question I am a forklift salesperson who occasionally gets involved in narrow aisle systems planning. Is there a source for "rule of thumb" travel times for warehouse fleet equipment such as: reach trucks, sit-down counterbalanced forklifts, rider pallet jacks, order pickers, stacker cranes, turret trucks, etc? Customers provide pick rates and layouts and ask me to estimate how much equipment they may need.
Thanks for your help!
Answer Marvin
This is outside my area of expertise but that won't stop me from giving some kind of answer. Generally you should be able to get rates of travel from the equipment manufacturers and make some assumptions from there. I also believe that with electric lifts the voltage has a direct impact upon travel speed.
A major component in how much equipment is the profile of the work being performed. If all you are doing is putting away or pulling full pallets you could average out the travel distance and speed to get an estimate of the equipment required. On the other hand, if you are picking cartons or eaches, the amount of SKUs or picks per trip has a major impact on the amount of equipment needed as the equipment is not moving as much.
The lift height is also a major determining factor. If you are only lifting an average of 12' then the time is much less that if you are lifting 20'. Also the weight and stability of the loads being transported and handled can have an impact as well.
Anyway, you can see there is no easy answer to the question you are being asked. I am sure that an industrial engineer would have a better idea on how to formulate an answer than I can.
