Products > Fork Free Solutions

Fork Free Factory Floors

Gain floor space, gain worker safety, and gain productivity by going fork-free. Forklifts need space to maneuver. Forklifts run into people, posts, and product. Forklifts have to be maintained, repaired, and staffed (the driver, repair people, and supervisor). The personal injury liability totals from forklift injuries and deaths are staggering: it has been estimated that a hundred workers are killed and 20,000 injured in the U.S. each year in forklift accidents. Although workplace safety failures are the most costly expense of forklifting, there are big ongoing operation expenses as well. The forklift operation has to be coordinated with the line workstation to get material to the line in time. More inventory is required to be stocked to support stop-and-go forklift transport.

Factory floor space is expensive, so using it for direct production functions is more profitable than leaving it vacant for forklift maneuvering. Modern Airfloat material handling systems can greatly reduce the staffing required for forklift operation, maintenance, and supervision. Lean manufacturing needs to reduce the total inventory needed for production. It takes more "pipeline" inventory for forklift delivery to workstations than is needed for Airfloat automated material handling.

Airfloat has the practical design and application experience to get your operation practically forklift free. That means both practical in the cost-effective sense, and practical in the near-total approaches to safe and efficient material handling solutions beyond forklifting. Whether it's an old facility with narrow aisles that dead-end, uneven floors, and badly-located production inventory storage, or a brand new plant still on the drawing board, Airfloat can show you the way to maximum material-handling efficiency.

Fork Free Equipment Video

Click on the arrow button in the middle of the player below to watch a short video demonstrating a robotic line feed air bearing lift.

*player will open in a pop-up window.

Click on the link below for a larger format, .wmv file, viewable in Windows Media Player.

Robotic Line Feed Air Bearing Lift