The forklift has become such an invaluable piece of machinery found and used in most warehousing and industrial operations, ever since its introduction to the market more than 90 years ago in the 1920's. One of the forklift's pioneers, Clark has grown to become an industry leading supplier in the material handling industry. Other popular names in the making of these machines comprise: Yale, Hyster, Nissan Toyota, Mitsubishi and Cat.
Hyster has grown to become among the most popular units of lift trucks in the business. In fact, in some places, the word "Hyster" is synonymous with forklift. Other common names for this industrial lifting equipment consist of: high/low, lift truck, jitney, stacker truck and fork truck.
The ancestor of today's equipment was first developed in the early 19th century. At this time, battery-powered, small units were made for the purpose of transporting traveler's luggage at the Altoona train station within Pennsylvania. In WWI, various types were developed in England specially to be utilized in the material handling industry. These machines evolved as a solution to the manpower shortage at that time.
The modern equivalents come in a range of sizes and configurations. There are the large truck-mounted lift truck units that are also known as sod loaders and then the opposite end of the spectrum has small hand truck models. There are also a line of automated versions known as forklift automated guided vehicles that are basically robotic in nature. These units were made as a way of lowering operational costs and to improve production.
A common lift truck is able to utilize a wide range of attachments that are capable of being added for a range of specific functions. The motors can be internal combustion or IC models, running on gasoline, propane or diesel, or there are battery operated options which require regular charging. Typical warehouse models would usually be rated to raise between approximately 1 and 5 tons.
Ever since their evolution, forklifts have become a priceless part of the material handling business. Thousands of these units are used on a daily basis all over the world to perform jobs which used to need much more man-power. Operators must take stringent training courses in order to legally and safely run these heavy equipment. Numerous workers have longer careers now and better health overall due to their not having to lift things manually anymore as the forklifts are capable of handling those situations now instead.