How Industrial Dollies Improve Warehouse Efficiency
Optimizing efficiency in a warehouse environment requires careful consideration of many factors, from systems and structures to the tools available to team members. With thoughtful processes and the right moving equipment, companies can streamline their warehouse operations and increase output.
One tool that can boost warehouse productivity and efficiency is an industrial dolly, also called a machinery dolly. Heavy-duty dollies allow warehouse team members to use their energy, space, and time more effectively, which can meaningfully improve the efficiency of the workplace.
Optimized Space Utilization
Industrial dollies enable more precision when arranging and storing pallets, boxes, and other large units in warehouses. This allows warehouse workers to cut down on negative space and use the available square footage more efficiently.
Additionally, industrial dollies take up much less space than many other types of industrial lifting and moving equipment, such as forklifts. With the dollies themselves claiming less square footage, more floor space is available for other applications.
Faster Material Movement
Industrial dollies allow workers to transport materials much more quickly than a manual moving solution. As a result, warehouse teams can move more material in less time, increasing the overall efficiency of the facility. This may mean loading and unloading trucks, storing incoming products, packing orders, and more—faster.
Using a heavy-duty dolly, rather than manpower, means fewer workers are needed to move a given load, freeing up more team members for different tasks. With more workers available, overall productivity increases.
Improved Safety
Manual lifting and moving solutions can put considerable strain on workers’ bodies, resulting in fatigue earlier in the workday. Exhaustion can increase the likelihood of mistakes, accidents, and injuries.
An industrial dolly is far less demanding on workers’ bodies, which minimizes the risk of accidents and injuries and creates a safer work environment. Additionally, specialized features on the dolly, such as cone fittings on container dollies and non-slip pads on heavy machinery dollies, can reduce the risk of load slippage.
Choosing The Right Dolly For Your Needs
There are many different types of industrial and machinery-moving dolly on the market, each offering special features and capabilities for different work environments. In order to choose the right dolly, it is important to take stock of your needs, from material to mobility and beyond.
Load Capacity
Load capacity is often the first specification to consider when choosing an industrial dolly. Of course, it is critical to choose a dolly that can safely handle the heaviest loads in a given work environment. However, purchasing a heavy machinery dolly with a higher load capacity than you truly need means spending more money than necessary. Understanding your current and anticipated load capacity needs is the first step to selecting the right heavy-duty dolly, in terms of both function and price.
Mobility
The value of different mobility capabilities depends on the nature of the facility. Some industrial dollies offer excellent mobility and can navigate sharp corners, tight spaces, and cramped hallways with ease. Others have straight-line driving functions for navigating long stretches without any drift, which is convenient for traveling down hallways.
Additionally, some machinery-moving dollies can be operated with a remote control, allowing the operator to stand back from the load. This can be valuable in tight spaces, where there may not be space to maneuver the load around obstacles and the worker’s body.
Design Features
Different types of industrial dollies often come with specialized design features designed for ease of use and safety. For example, some heavy machinery dollies are adjustable to accommodate loads with different widths and dimensions. Container dollies are made with specialized cone fittings at each corner for securing the container securely to the dolly. Robot dollies are fully motorized, requiring neither manpower nor machine towing for locomotion. Understanding the specialized features of each type of heavy-duty dolly is key to choosing the right dolly for your needs.
Material
Some industrial dollies come in both general-use and nickel-plated models. Nickel plating is incredibly valuable for sensitive environments, such as delicate manufacturing facilities and clean rooms. Nickel-plated dollies do not introduce “rust dust” or other contaminants, which makes it possible for these facilities to employ their heavy-duty lifting capabilities without risking the fragile environment.
Enhance Your Operations with GKS Industrial Dollies
The right industrial dolly, with the right features and capabilities, can meaningfully improve the efficiency of your warehouse, resulting in streamlined processes and greater productivity.
GKS is proud to offer a range of expertly crafted industrial and heavy machinery dollies designed to meet the needs of a range of warehouse environments, so you can choose the perfect one for your business. From flexible transport and tandem dollies to heavy-duty plating dollies, robots, and more, our industrial dollies offer the features and durability you need to get more done and take your operation to the next level.
Every single dolly we make undergoes a full quality inspection before it leaves our German manufacturing facility, so you can trust that your new dolly meets our exacting standards. Our U.S.-based customer service team is always available to answer questions, help order replacement parts, and offer the support you need.
Contact GKS today to talk to a team member about finding the best lifting solution for your needs.
