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3 Ways Food Service Distributors Can Streamline Backdoor Deliveries

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Backdoor deliveries to restaurants, institutional kitchens, convenience stores, and other food service environments pose unique challenges. These challenges can change from one delivery to the next. Delivery drivers may encounter hard-to-access entryways, obstructed receiving areas, wet floors, and overcrowded backrooms. These hazards are disruptive and can slow down delivery personnel. However, key strategies and tools can help distributors overcome these challenges. This can include prioritizing load stability with space-appropriate dolly carts . Here are a few strategies food service distributors can use to streamline backdoor deliveries. Prepare to Enter a New Operating Environment with Every Stop Every restaurant, kitchen, and convenience store environment will be different. It’s useful to go into every delivery mentally and practically prepared. Consider everything from entryways and receiving areas to ramps, doors, stairs, and floors, and even the receiving time f...

3 Ways Material Handling Equipment Helps Uniform Delivery Teams

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Laundry and linen routes place high demands on your employees. Delivering uniforms means not just handling the load weight but also countless repeated movements throughout the day. Constant starts, stops, and turns through service areas take their toll. Using material handling equipment, such as classic hand trucks , can make these tasks easier for your employees while maintaining or even improving efficiency. Improve Efficiency While Reducing Strain When your employees use material handling equipment, they move more smoothly with better balance and cleaner route performance. It’s much easier to stack boxes of clean laundry on a hand truck and wheel them to their destination than to carry them by hand. If a box or bag of laundry won’t fit on a traditional hand truck, you might need to upgrade to a heavy duty hand truck trolley . It is designed to support heavier, bulkier loads. The heavy duty hand truck can also tackle other tasks for your employees, such as moving washers...

How 3PL Teams Keep Up with Mixed Customer Requirements

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Third-party logistics teams often have a diverse client portfolio. One might require a motorized hand truck to move their items, while another could just need a lightweight dolly. Standardizing tools improves efficiency and productivity. The trick is to do so without oversimplifying the work. From training out inconsistent habits to standardizing non-negotiables, here are a few tips to help. Different Clients Have Different Needs Every client is different. Your team might need to move only a few small boxes for one client, but furniture and appliances for the next. Inconsistency is often a process problem, not a labor problem, so there should be a process that dictates which material handling tools go with which clients. A collapsible and lightweight hand cart can be tucked into a delivery van, whereas more specialized equipment may require different storage. For example, a motorized hand truck requires a powered liftgate for deliveries. Required tools and steps shoul...

How Can Rental Businesses Improve Efficiency?

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Rental businesses are always looking for ways to reduce rehandling time during returns, staging, and loadouts. Whether you need to make your loads more uniform and standardized or make it easier for customers to find or return their rented powered hand truck , there are a few ways your rental business can improve control, consistency, and team efficiency between jobs. Here are a few things to consider. Start by Reducing Turnaround Problems Incoming and outgoing equipment will place different demands on your team. Outgoing equipment needs to be inspected and ready to go, while returns need to be processed, maintained, and returned to their spot. The problem arises when you have too much internal movement, which can slow scheduling and turnaround times. How much time does it take to inspect and move a convertible hand truck dolly back to its rental spot? Did the pressure washer come back with all of its nozzle tips? How long does it take to move items between yards? The a...

Need a Custom Hand Truck? Magline Makes It Easy

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If you regularly use a standard hand truck, chances are there are ways you’d like to improve it. Whether it’s wheels that won’t destroy a client’s carpet or handles that are more ergonomic, it’s easy to customize nearly every part of a Magliner hand truck. From the classic to the collapsible hand truck, you can find customizations or add-on options for most Magliner material handling tools. Design Your Own Magliner at https://www.magliner.com/ Contact Magliner at 866-329-4737 Choosing the Right Wheels Wheels can make a major difference for hand trucks during deliveries or while moving items around a warehouse. Pneumatic tires offer excellent load protection and shock absorption and perform well on uneven surfaces, such as gravel. Microcellular wheels are long-lasting and don’t need air, so they can never go flat. Mold-on rubber wheels are lightweight, durable, and ideal for paved surfaces. Solid rubber and microcellular wheels are perfect for white-glove deliveries or profess...

How Can You Make Trade Show Setup Easier?

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Trade show setup can take hours of toiling under convention center lights as your team unpacks, moves items, and gets the floorplan right. There are some ways to make this easier, including assigning who will move items with the heavy duty hand truck and pre-planning the setup. Here are a few tips to make the logistics of setting up a trade show booth easier. Pre-Planning Is a Must Pre-show prep is a key strategy for more efficient setup processes. Before heading to the trade show, be sure to shop hand truck carts online, so your team is equipped to efficiently move pieces of the display. Create a checklist detailing all booth components, tools, and marketing materials, along with their locations. As boxes are wheeled in on hand trucks, check them off the list. Assembling the structure should be the first step, with backdrops, frames, and lighting coming before smaller items and product placement. A heavy duty hand truck or motorized hand truck can help your team easily move e...

How Can Material Handling Tools Support Employee Productivity?

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As your employees go about their tasks during the day, they tend to slow down toward the end as their energy is expended. Harder tasks, like moving boxes by hand, are tiring and inefficient. If you want to boost all-day productivity, you can get versatile hand truck and carts to help your employees get more done in less time while using less energy. Here are a few ways the right material handling tools help. Support All-Day Energy Levels Moving items one by one takes up time and energy. No matter how heavy the boxes are, if your employees need to move supplies, products, or a client’s personal items, it has to be done. With a classic hand truck, your employees can make these tasks much easier. Stack the boxes on the dolly and wheel it into place. High-quality hand trucks with a 500-pound weight capacity are valuable in the moving, logistics, and delivery space, and can help your team maintain energy levels from morning to night. Avoid Team Lifts and Free Up Employees Te...

3 Material Handling Tools Whole-Home Water Treatment Companies Need

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Whole-home water treatment companies need to deliver heavy water softeners, bags of salt, and other equipment to homes. They may also deliver reverse osmosis systems, water cooler bottles, and other supplies. With the right material handling tools, like classic dolly carts , your delivery drivers can do their jobs quickly and efficiently. Here are three material handling tools worth investing in. The Classic Hand Truck for Salt Bags Salt bags are heavy to move by hand, especially if you need to deliver two or three bags. Multiply that over dozens of stops each day, and it’s tiring work. A hand dolly can make this task quick and simple. Stack the bags on the dolly, and the operator can wheel them into a garage or wherever the water softener is located. With a hand truck, your drivers can be more efficient and more productive throughout the day. Handle Bulky Equipment with the Heavy Duty Hand Truck Moving water softeners and reverse osmosis machines is even more difficult t...

Get Your Logistics Business Ready for the Spring Rush

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Is your logistics firm ready for the spring rush? Don’t let yourself get caught off guard by increased customer orders or supply chain hiccups. Use your Q2 forecast to plan the next few months and stay ready for what’s ahead. Early spring is an ideal time to scale and secure the resources you need for the months ahead. From hiring additional staff to investing in new equipment, like adaptable hand truck carts , here’s how to prepare for the spring rush. Reference Past Trends and Plan Accordingly  If you haven’t already, now is the time to reference past sales data. Identify customer trends, such as areas of increased or decreased ordering. This information allows you to allocate resources and respond proactively. Information is key. It doesn’t just inform your decision-making and preparedness; it also shapes your planning priorities. It allows you to anticipate customer needs. When they come to you this spring, you’re already prepared, minimizing lead times and maximizing efficien...

3 Ways to Prepare for Hospital-Based Deliveries

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Hospitals and health care facilities are always in motion. People are constantly coming and going, including delivery drivers. If you don’t routinely deliver to hospitals or your logistics firm is now accepting hospital-bound deliveries, there are challenges to be aware of. Hospital deliveries can be more involved than other B2B and B2C deliveries. Everything from route planning to having the appropriate hand cart will impact the delivery process. Here are a few challenges delivery personnel may face, along with how to address them.  Be Ready to Navigate (and Navigate Some More) Some hospital campuses are expansive and difficult to navigate, especially in larger metropolitan areas. Past routes and GPS-suggested routes are often inaccurate or outdated. Construction can also play a role, as a route that existed a month ago may no longer be accessible. Planning routes in advance can facilitate smoother navigation for drivers. Additionally, being familiar with delivery drop-of...