Lifting

Raising and lowering of materials to different heights are definitely one of the movements in a warehouse. Cranes and hoists are the equipments to do it. However they are only able to do so in a defined space. Cranes and hoists are expensive and it is not easily modifiable when installed. Proper planning should be made before installing it. There are many examples of lifting equipments. They are, hoists, jib cranes, overhead traveling cranes, gantry cranes, crane attachments and scissor lifts.

Today we are only focusing on gantry cranes and scissor lifts.

Gantry Cranes

Gantry cranes travels on floor-mounted rails. It is built to handle large and heavy goods. It can carry up to 200,000kg. Usually gantry cranes are installed at shipyards and steel mills where heavy lifting of ship components are required.

Gantry cranes are cheaper than its alternative which is the bridge crane. The table below shows the cost comparison between the two alternatives.

Gantry crane may have a higher initial setup cost but gantry crane allows you to save up to $17,985 as compared to bridge crane in total cost.

It has a large work area and it allows easy movement of the goods. 

However, despite the lower cost, gantry cranes takes up a large space as it is dependent on the rails that are mounted on the floors.

Scissor Lifts

It is used to lift things from a platform to another of another level. It can only be raised vertically. It is operated by hydraulic actuated scissor mechanism under the table. It carry up to around 200,000kg. Scissor lifts can lift up to a height of 12-13m. It is cheap.

It is usually used in the loading and unloading stages of the warehouse operations.