The lift truck has become such an important piece of machinery found and utilized in most industrial operations and warehousing, since its introduction to the market more than 90 years ago in the 1920's. Among the forklift's pioneers, Clark has grown to become an industry leading supplier in the material handling business. Various other popular names in the making of these machines include: Toyota, Mitsubishi, Cat, Nissan, Yale and Hyster.
The Hyster brand of lift truck has become one of the industries most popular manufacturers. In fact, in some regions, the word "Hyster" is synonymous with forklift. Other common names for this industrial lifting machinery consist of: stacker truck, fork truck, jitney, high/low and lift truck.
It was during the 19th century that the machinery ancestors of the forklift was initially made. At this time, battery-powered, small units were made for the purpose of moving traveler's baggage within Pennsylvania at the Altoona train station. In the First World War, several different types were developed within England specially for use in the material handling industry. These machinery evolved as a solution to the manpower shortage at that time.
The modern equivalents come in a variety of sizes and configurations. There are the large truck-mounted lift truck units which are also known as sod loaders and then the opposite end of the spectrum has small hand truck units. There are also a line of automated versions referred to as forklift automated guided vehicles that are basically robotic in nature. These units were made to improve production and as a way of lowering operational costs.
A common forklift is able to utilize a wide array of attachments which are capable of being added for a range of particular functions. The motors can be internal combustion or IC units, running on diesel, gasoline or propane, or there are battery operated options which require regular charging. Typical warehouse units will usually be rated to lift between around 1 and 5 tons.
Ever since their evolution, lift trucks have become a priceless part of the material handling business. Thousands of these models are utilized each and every day throughout the globe to complete jobs which used to require much more man-power. Operators should take stringent training courses in order to safely and legally operate these heavy equipment. Numerous workers have longer careers now and better health overall due to their not having to lift items manually anymore since the forklifts are capable of handling those situations now instead.