The first forklift was created in 1917 by the Clark company. The first model was known as the Tructotractor, and was used to haul supplies across their factory to save workers time and energy so they could perform other tasks.
The Tructotractor worked so well that other companies began to ask for their own. Thus, the one product the company didn’t make to sell became its bestseller.
Over the course of its long and storied history, tructotractors were renamed industrial forklifts, and people found several new uses for them. We’ll talk about some of these uses in this article.
1. Construction
The most common use of forklifts is on construction sites. Given the sheer amount of heavy objects, especially building materials, involved in construction, forklifts are an absolute must.
They can help carry and transport materials that humans would otherwise struggle with. You’d need multiple team members and any misstep could result in serious injury.
Forklifts only require one person to operate. As we’ve mentioned above, this frees up other workers to do other jobs, which raises efficiency. That’s just one of a few different reasons to rent a forklift.
2. Warehouses
Warehouses and various other facilities involved in the retail industry use forklifts to help move and store goods. This allows more product to be kept longer, which increases the amount that can be sold and the amount of people that can be fed on a single crop of food.
With more products comes more plastic, and that increases forklift use as well. We’ll go into more detail on that in a bit.
Part of the reason this process becomes so much more streamlined is because organization become easier. Industrial forklifts allow us to carry things further with minimal loss of energy. This makes it more plausible to utilize all parts of the warehouse when sorting.
3. Recycling
Recycling may seem like an odd use for industrial forklifts, but it’s one of the most common. The world produces over 300 million tons of plastic each year, and in the US, only about 9% of this is recycled.
Other areas, such as Europe and China, do significantly better, with Europe recycling roughly 30% of all plastics it uses.
Even if we assume a recycling rate of 9% for the whole world, that still adds up to 27 million tons of plastic being recycled worldwide. That’s a lot of plastic to transport, so forklifts definitely come in handy.
The Many Uses of Industrial Forklifts
Several businesses were revolutionized with the invention of industrial forklifts. These specialized vehicles have found use in many different places doing many different tasks.
We’ve gone over just a few of their uses in the paragraphs above, but there are plenty more out there. You may want to do more research or talk to experts if you’re interested.
We are among the professionals that you should consider talking to. Our entire business revolves around forklifts. We rent them out, repair them, and even sell a few of them. If you want to know more, feel free to contact us.