While many manufacturing and warehouse operations still rely on forklifts for moving materials from Point A to Point B, a growing number of companies are turning to tugger and cart systems for more efficiency and cost savings.
Tuggers and carts are like miniature trains that don’t run on rails. A series of carts can be loaded with a different materials at an initial location, such as a loading dock, then a tugger vehicle can maneuver throughout the facility dropping off individual cartfuls of materials where they are needed.
Increased Delivery Speed and Efficiency
For many operations, this type of system makes more sense than having a forklift or even a fleet of lift trucks making multiple trips between the dock and various stations. Tuggers and carts create less traffic and, when combined with a well-planned material flow system, they can get materials and supplies where they are needed faster and more efficiently.
Larry Tyler, vice president of sales and marketing for K-Tec/Kinetic Technologies, a manufacturer of tuggers and carts, said the vehicles are the cutting edge way for facilities to both improve productivity and reduce operational costs.
“A fork truck is a vital component of a complete materials handling system,” Tyler told Modern Materials Handling. “It’s not the bad guy. It’s just one way to move materials, and as long as 15 years ago fork trucks were the most efficient way.”
Require Fewer Operators
But tuggers and carts provide more flexibility and require fewer operators than a fleet of forklifts, he added.
Some facilities are even using tuggers and carts to replace conveyer lines. While these systems of belts are expensive to install and often need to be reconfigured to reflect operational and production changes, tuggers and carts are free to move wherever they are needed, according to Tyler.
“for parts deliveries to a production line, horizontal space is at a premium,” Tyler said. “Production engineers can be reluctant to build fixed solutions, such as a conveyor, because the process may need to change going forward. That’s why the flexibility of cart-based solutions can make more sense from from a return on investment perspective.”
First-On/Last-Off
Carts can be loaded sequentially so that the first materials to be delivered are at the end of the train. Or “mother and daughter” carts can be used, allowing smaller carts to be offloaded from the middle of the sequence without having to uncouple and recouple the entire line of carts.
Some tuggers are operated manually while others are unmanned. Depending on their size and capacity, tuggers can pull loads ranging from anywhere from 10,000 to 250,000 pounds. Plus, tuggers are usually electric-powered, so they can be used inside facilities without having to worry about emissions.
One of the limitations of tuggers and cart systems are their ability to turn corners efficiently. The longer the cart, the wider the required turning radius, so facilities using tuggers and cart systems may need wider aisles in order to accomodate the vehicles.
Another solution, however, is to use carts that have four-wheel steer assemblies that can make sharper turns because both the front and back wheels can turn. While this design reduces the turning radius, they tend to be more expensive.
Ergonomic Benefits
In some cases, the carts themselves can have a series of movable shelves so that they are more ergonomically friendly to the workers unloading them once they reach their destination.
While forklifts will most likely continue to be an important and useful tool in material handling operations, tuggers and cart systems are rapidly making their influence known.