Maximising the use of your warehouse, retail storage or manufacturing facility space is vital to ensuring that your business runs smoothly. With the rise in consumers buying online and the likely greater demands this places on your business. With extra goods, more traffic and storage requirements growing, you must continue to look at ways to improve efficiency and be able to move goods around more efficiently if you are to keep up.
Why A Goods Lift?
A goods lift will provide an efficient and safe means to transport goods between floors, better use an existing or new mezzanine level, or help you grow upwards onto higher floors. Opening up previously unusable spaces could help you avoid the need to move premises. Installing a goods lift is less expensive than relocation and will make a positive difference to your business quickly without the disruption of moving.
Whether starting afresh in new premises or seeking to upgrade your existing facilities, installing an appropriate goods lift requires consideration of a few key factors to ensure you get the most suitable features.
Advice from a leading loading bay installation expert, such as Mezzanine Floor Lifts, will ensure you are on the right track. A supplier able to advise, manufacture and install a solution adaptable to your needs is essential to ensure your goods lift can handle everything you need.
What You Need To Consider When Choosing A Goods Lift
- Space and versatility – Your choice of goods will depend on your area and site layout. An installation expert will be able to assist you in making the most of the space you have, no matter how restricted or limited.
- Capacity – are your goods light but bulky, heavy and small, both heavy and oversized? All of these will affect the type and size of lift you require. Consider whether a larger goods lift could help you streamline operations and improve efficiency, thus improving your processes and helping you cope with increased demands.
- Features – Exact features will vary between suppliers, but you should be looking to be able to choose the colours to match your brand or site décor and the style and location of operational controls.
- Access – Correct placement of the lift within the environment is essential. An expert installation team should understand the processes involved within your sector. Whether retail, industrial or self-storage, their knowledge will be invaluable to help you ensure your new goods or mezzanine floor lift can benefit your operations.
- Quality and reliability – Downtime costs money, so ensure that your lifts are engineered to withstand the stress you will place on them and have a reliability record that supports the service they claim.
- Legal Health and Safety – Your goods lift should comply with all relevant UK and EU safety standards and the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC and follow HSE LOLER regulations covering lifting operations and lifting equipment. Keeping your staff safe whilst using equipment and moving heavy loads between levels is essential, so choose a supplier who values their safety as much as you do.
- Installation time – choosing a modular construction design means installation can be carried out in as little as a day or two, with minimum disruption to your operations whilst the work is completed.
- Efficiency – power supply such as a 240 volt or 3 phase mains choices will depend on your usage and your continuous operational needs. The addition of a rapid fault-finding HMI touch screen and remote log-in offers quick and easy fix solutions without always needing an engineer visit.
Finally, look for mezzanine floor lifts and goods lifts that can be adapted and supplied to your specific requirements and offer you choices for internal or external fitting with cladding for external lifts. Also, the choice of entry and exit points, such as the availability of through-loading capacity, same side or opposite-side access gates, should be guided by your specific site needs, not the standard fit. Varying height lift car sides and variable lead-on ramp lengths are additional features you should look for to help you get the most from your new goods lift.
