They are ideal over-the-road shipping containers because they produce a
unitized load, are durable, and offer superior product protection and ease of handling.
This means you can stack
unitized loads on top of each other without damage from compression.
'When the container hits the port, the cartons go onto a conveyor belt and then to a palletizer where they're built into
unitized loads that can be putaway on pallets in a DC.'
"If you have
unitized loads, handling them is easy," according to Jim Galante, director of business development for Southworth Products (800-743-1000, www.southworthproducts.com).
Automatic truck loading vehicles, for instance, have been designed to load pallets and other
unitized loads into truck trailers or storage units without an operator.
The easily assembled KD (Knocked Down) units provide an economical solution for the storage and handling of
unitized loads.
The
unitized loads are then conveyed to an automatic stretch wrapper.
Navy and a lift truck manufacturer experimented with the method for
unitized loads of canned goods in cases, weighing up to 2,900 lb per load.
Lift trucks transport all the
unitized loads at the outlets, including hard-to-handle stacks of lumber.
Individual cartons, for example, can be loaded rapidly into a carrier with conveyors;
unitized loads require lift trucks.
Downstream, conveyors, automatic guided vehicles, or lift trucks may bring
unitized loads to a stretch wrapper or straight to the docks.
Just as serious, the
unitized loads are not shipped on pallets.
