powered pallet truck

A forklift truck, a lift truck or a forklift is a powered industrial truck used to lift and transport materials, often by means of steel forks inserted under the load. Forklifts are most commonly used to move loads stored on pallets. The forklift was developed in the 1920s by various companies including the transmission manufacturing company Clark (today known as Clark Material Handling Company) and the hoist company Yale & Towne Manufacturing (Today known as Yale Materials Handling Corporation)[1]. It has since become an indispensable piece of equipment in manufacturing and warehousing operations.

Design types

There are many national and/or continental associations related to the industrial trucks. Crown Equipment - Powered Pallet Truck/Trucks. The three major ones are the Industrial Truck Association (North America), the Fédération Européenne de la Manutention (Europe) and the Japan Industrial Vehicles Association (Japan). There are many significant contacts among them and they have established joint statistical and engineering programs. One program is the WITS (World Industrial Trucks Statistics) published every month to the association memberships. The statistics are separated by area (continent), country, and class of machine.