Forklift fleet bears fruit for freight handling business

George Hammond unloads and stores fresh produce – mainly palletised bananas, pineapples and melons – which arrive from West Africa and central America. "We provide an efficient, fast, safe and careful produce handling operation at the Port of Dover, and the materials handling fleet is a critical element," says James Ryeland, managing director of George Hammond, Port and Marine Services. "We need maximum availability from the forklift fleet as the ships have to be in and out quickly and the produce sorted and transferred immediately into temperature-controlled store or direct to transport." Cranes transfer pallets from the ships to the quayside where the trucks, fitted with double and treble pallet handlers, transport the perishables directly into ambient transit sheds at the quayside. The produce is then scanned and either cross docked and loaded straight onto customer vehicles, or immediately transferred to the temperature-controlled store. "Sometimes the ships arrive back to back, so a reliable forklift fleet is essential for continuous operation and to ensure we offer a 24-hour flexible service" adds Ryeland. "We own all our trucks and maintain them ourselves with full support from Barloworld as we need it." The Hyster trucks stand up to the site's intense demands thanks, in part, to the electronically controlled Duramatch transmission, which enables even aggressive direction changes to be made smoothly, without using the brake pedal or stopping the truck. This contributes to improved productivity and reduced maintenance costs, prolonging the lifetime of the clutch, brakes and tyres. The entire drive train is protected, the oil immersed brakes are virtually maintenance free and the fleet operates on Michelin pneumatic tyres, helping to reduce wear on the brick block flooring. Low emissions was another important factor in the choice: the trucks are used inside the temperature-controlled storage areas and exhaust emissions can speed up the ripening process of bananas. George Hammond has bought Hyster equipment for many years – trucks bought in the early 1990s are still in use and used as spare vehicles.