Three ways lift trucks can boost warehouse productivity
2 March 2026 
Growing customer expectations, rising costs and ongoing labour challenges are pushing warehouses to improve efficiency and competitiveness. This article outlines three ways operations can boost productivity, streamline workflows and increase storage capacity through technology-enabled lift truck solutions
To keep pace with increasing order volumes and tighter operating margins, warehouses must focus on getting more from their existing resources. By aligning lift truck capabilities with operational needs, businesses can improve operator performance, accelerate order fulfilment and make better use of available space. The following three approaches highlight where targeted changes
can deliver measurable efficiency gains.
1. Optimise operator performance
Optimising conditions for peak labour productivity is two-fold. Environmental factors, such as inventory crowding, along with the amount of light and room to manoeuvre, can affect efficiency. Factors tied to operator comfort and energy can also heavily impact performance.
Equipment must be properly outfitted to support operator performance and safe lift truck operating best practices. For instance, in tight spaces, characteristics such as a small turning radius and easy manoeuvrability are essential to maximising performance.
Operator assist solutions, including lights and alarms, can also help lend lift truck operators a hand. LED lights installed at the base and forks of lift trucks can provide illumination in poorly lit
environments, helping reduce the risk of damage and improve pedestrian and operator awareness.
Operator assist solutions can also take the form of technology systems that provide varying levels of support, including stability control systems and even more advanced operator assistance technologies. A stability control system monitors input from the lift truck and applies automatic, real-time interventions to help support stable travel and provide operators with an immediate layer of feedback to help reinforce the safety best practices they learned in their training. In practice, the most advanced systems can enable a broad range of functionality, such as automatically slowing down the truck if the system detects a pedestrian or obstacle in the path of travel. But not all technologies are created equal. Some solutions may only provide an alert to the operator, not an automatic performance adjustment.
Over the course of a shift, operator productivity can decrease by as much as 30%. Plus, labour makes up 40–60% of a warehouse’s operating costs, so maximising the return from labour investments is critical.
Equipment can help fight fatigue and discomfort, empowering operators to remain focused and efficient all shift long. Look for product characteristics that promote comfort. Such as power-assisted steering, extra cushioning for shock absorption, pedal-free operator presence systems, and more.
2. Optimise order picking workflows
With labour difficult to find and retain, counting on increased headcount to keep up with growing order volumes is unreliable at best. Instead, warehouses need to do more with available resources and prime their workforce for maximum productivity – especially for the labour-intensive task of order picking.
Picking orders can be prone to inefficiencies, including significant time spent traveling between pick locations, too many product touches, aisle congestion and time spent lowering goods from storage locations. To help warehouses combat these inefficiencies, select workflow strategies and equipment capabilities can be deployed.
A full 80% of high-velocity, fast-paced order picking movement typically comes from just 20% of SKUs, making slotting strategy an important opportunity for optimisation. Organise storage based on product movement so that the items that need to be picked most frequently are in the most convenient pick locations, also known as the ergonomic golden zone. Arranging slower-moving SKUs above medium and faster-moving ones can enable pickers to minimise reaching and straining to access goods.
Best-in-class operations minimise pickers’ travel time on foot and on lift trucks, so that they can spend more of their time actually picking orders. Limiting the range of aisles a picker covers and other tactics can help save time and reduce product touches, damage and aisle congestion. Equipment features can also help, such as the option to move a pallet truck between pick locations without having to climb back on, saving critical steps and seconds between picks.
3. Optimise storage
Two key trends work together to produce surging demand for warehouse space: continued e-commerce growth and SKU proliferation resulting from consumer demand for greater product selection press operations to store and move larger inventories.
Capacity has become a critical measurement for high-performing warehouses. Space constraints impose limitations on the inventory warehouses can store, and consequently, the customers they can serve. Warehouses with insufficient storage and overflowing inventory may unintentionally result in inefficient slotting and storage methods, which can lead to disorganised picking practices and longer travel paths.
Warehouse space is consumed by many things, including lead-acid battery charging, maintenance, and storage rooms. In addition to productivity and sustainability benefits, lithium-ion batteries are not as space-intensive as lead-acid. These newer electric options can allow operations to reduce to a ratio of one power source per lift truck, whereas they would typically need to stock two to three lead-acid batteries per lift truck due to long charging cycles. This helps reduce the need for significant designated indoor room and provides an opportunity to recover and repurpose that space for added capacity.
Warehouses capitalise on their existing footprint by building up, rather than out, to take advantage of unused cubic volume. Equipment such as very narrow aisle (VNA) trucks are essential tools for operations to take advantage of higher-level storage locations. VNA trucks can operate in aisles as narrow as 1.4 metres, less than half of a standard aisle width. They can also service storage heights up to 16.9 metres high, helping maximise the cubic storage volume of the warehouse. To help operators stay productive in high-density configurations, through-the-mast visibility is important for precise handling, and using a 180-degree rotating turret head allows them to easily serve both sides of an aisle. While working at height, stability is a critical element to enable operators to work confidently and effectively. Wire guidance options can automatically steer the truck along the desired in-aisle path. Technology can also assist operators with speed, providing step-less speed control by optimising maximum travel speed depending on the fork height.
Reach trucks can also enable strategies that offer greater storage density, capable of working in 2.4 metre wide storage aisles. Characteristics that support operator comfort, speed and precision such as ergonomics, lift speed and visibility must be evaluated to ensure that the increased storage capacity does not come at the cost of significantly more time and energy required to service elevated locations. For instance, an operator may lack the necessary confidence and precision to reach productivity targets if the design of the equipment does not provide sufficient visibility
to see the forks and load when picking or placing pallets at height. Similarly, an ergonomic design helps fend off fatigue and discomfort to keep operators fresh and productive all shift.
Warehouses can also store two pallets at a single location to increase storage density. Reach trucks with double-deep reach capabilities that efficiently service storage positions two pallet loads deep can enable more capacity than single selective racking, without compromising fast storage and retrieval. Faster lift and lower speeds can quickly add up when servicing higher-level and double-deep storage. Just one additional pallet move per hour can amount to 7% greater productivity.
Optimise, then re-optimise
For today’s warehouses, there’s a fine line between struggling and thriving, and the extent to which they are able to optimise their operation can be the deciding force. Performing at a high level requires constantly re-evaluating strategies, workflows and technologies. A partner that has the breadth and depth of solutions to identify the most effective options for top performance
throughout an operation can better position a business to get the most out of what they have
This article was supplied by Yale.
For further information please visit: www.yale.com