It’s simple: rising transport costs, challenges sourcing raw materials and increased demand from some customers will increasingly mean one thing: capacity is everything for a lumber yard.

Yes, efficiency, sustainability and safety are absolutely essential factors but achieving greater capacity should be the goal of every part of an improvement plan.

Thankfully the available ways of doing this are very straightforward, so this blog will look at:

• Better (and fewer) materials handling trucks: Using enhanced truck features, such as multipurpose capacity and longer battery life, is a key step to better results.
• Better yard layout: A properly analysed and executed layout means easier, quicker and safer access to the right materials at the right time with less damage.
• Better processes: Delivered as part of a yard layout assessment, simple and effective processes for an improved operation will deliver BIG when scaled across the months and years.

Some of the errors our experts are seeing, when it comes to choice of forklift for their yard, are errors lumber yard operators can no longer afford to live with.

We’ve recently helped result issues with:

• Damage to raw materials: Increased efficiency will, by design, reduce product damage. The wrong choice of truck means, without the capacity to block stack and drive sideways, contact with other stock becomes harder to avoid. Also, too narrow a machine means more risk of bowing or damaging the wood.
• Too many vehicles: The unnecessary use of multiple machines simply adds further danger or bowing or damage. Our recommended truck (see below) as a first go-to is designed for indoor and outdoor use meaning fewer vehicles and reduced damage risk.
• Poor handling abilities: We’ve seen problems like trucks with poor battery and small format twin wheels being used plus lack of multi-directional operation and side loading capacity.

Our specialists recommend that lumber yard professionals assess the C-Series multidirectional forklift and the Combi-SL sideloader forklift truck. Thanks to its long load capacity, outdoor-capable tyres and long battery run time the Combilift XLE 5,000kg capacity multidirectional forklift is a must-see.

Aside from the issue of capacity mentioned above, the easiest possible access to the materials you need when you need them is no longer optional for a modern lumber yard.

Our video shows the problems a yard can experience when reaching the right stock, made worse by the use of an unsuitable truck, and the obvious safety and efficiency problems this causes. It’s worth repeating again that such issues are no longer affordable for lumber yards.

Layout has also become a vital consideration as sourcing additional warehousing space is becoming more expensive and it is, by its nature, a finite resource!