Narrow-aisle platform truck
works well for tight spaces
By Marcia Miquelon, Outreach Specialist
UW Madison Healthy Farmers, Healthy Profits Project
Growers who currently move flats of berries or boxes of produce by hand
can save time and reduce the risk of injury by switching to a narrow aisle
platform truck. The narrow aisle platform truck is a low hand truck with
a 16 by 48 or 60 inch deck 10 inches off the floor. It has 52-inch tall
sides on either end to stabilize the load and make the truck easy to push.
There are four rubber swivel casters at the corners, and two taller rigid
wheels in the center so you can tilt and turn the truck on its axis.
The narrow aisle platform truck enables one worker to move up to 30 flats
of berries or 15 bushel produce boxes in a single trip, turning the load
around tight corners with ease. Compared to hand carrying, total number
of trips can be reduced by up to 75%. This translates to greater efficiency
and speed.
Hand carrying flats or boxes is awkward and stressful on the back. Gripping
the thin cardboard handles of full produce boxes or berry flats for long
periods of time can strain fingers. Although the total amount of lifting
in one trip may not seem that significant, the cumulative effect can cause
strain or trauma. Pushing flats on a narrow aisle platform truck can reduce
this stress and strain considerably by reducing the amount of time spent
bending, lifting and carrying heavy loads. In our trials, the amount of
time spent under load was reduced by 84% (20 sec vs. 125 sec over 50 feet)
when using a narrow aisle platform truck to roll berries into the cooler,
compared to hand carrying three berry flats at a time.
Since many berry and small-scale vegetable growers store their produce
in converted barns, older buildings, and coolers with tight spaces and
narrow doorways, the narrow aisle platform truck may be a better fit than
a full sized pallet jack, pallet dolly, or other commonly used cart such
as a feed cart. With several narrow aisle platform trucks, it would be
easy to set up a system to rotate stock or to quickly retrieve specific
produce without hand carrying boxes. Cabbage could go on one truck and
cauliflower on another, and each load could be rolled out as needed to
retrieve produce from the cooler. At a farm stand, the narrow aisle platform
truck could be used to stock shelves because it fits in tight spaces and
can turn around sharp corners.
"It's a gimme," comments Dave Witte of West Bend, WI. "Since
regular sized pallets won't fit through my cooler door, this truck works
perfectly for me. I'd like to eventually have about half a dozen, so I
can store all my produce on them right in the cooler."
Since boxes are stacked one row deep on the narrow aisle platform truck,
each box will have at least two sides exposed to the air. This promotes
faster, more even cooling than if boxes are tightly stacked in multiple
rows on a full-sized pallet or on the floor. Faster cooling maintains
crop quality.
A new narrow aisle pallet truck costs $160 to $275 plus shipping. Look
for used narrow aisle platform trucks from supermarkets and department
stores, where they are commonly used to stock shelves. A local fabricator
might also be able to build a cart to your specifications. For a new narrow
aisle platform truck, look under "materials handling" in your
phone book, at large wholesale department stores such as Sam's Club, or
contact the following companies:
* Rand Materials Handling
P.O. Box 3003
515 Narragansett Park Dr.
Pawtucket, RI 02861
1-800-366-2300
* C & H Distributors, Inc.
770 South 70th St.
P.O. Box 14770
Milwaukee, WI 53214
1-800-558-9966
* Badger Material Handling
16805 W. Victor Rd.
New Berlin, WI
1-800-242-0541
These references are provided as a convenience for our readers. They
are not an endorsement by the University of Wisconsin.
For more information about this and many other work efficiency tools
and techniques, please contact the Healthy Farmers, Healthy Profits project
at (608) 262-1054, or go to our website at http://bse.wisc.edu/hfhp/
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