A forklift (also called industrial truck, lift truck, jitney, hi-lo, fork truck, fork hoist, and forklift truck) is a powered industrial truck used to lift and move materials over short distances.
The forklift was developed in the early 20th century by various companies, including Clark, which made transmissions, and Yale & Towne Manufacturing, which made hoists.
Clark Material Handling Company (CMHC), also known as CLARK or CLARK the Forklift, is an American manufacturer of forklift trucks based in Dallas, Texas. The company has manufacturing facilities in Changwon, South Korea, Lexington, Kentucky, Qingdao, China, and Hanoi, Vietnam. CLARK currently (2023) offers one of the broadest product lines in the industry, with products covering all five forklift classes, ranging from hand pallet jacks to 18,000 pound-capacity sit down forklifts.
According to the company, there are over 350,000 CLARK forklift trucks currently in operation around the world. CLARK is credited with having invented the world's first truck with a hydraulic lifting mechanism in 1924, an attachment to the Duat tow tractor. This internal combustion truck with hydraulic lifting mechanism became the forerunner to modern forklift trucks.
A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities, towns, or villages.
Warehouses usually have loading docks to load and unload goods from trucks. Sometimes warehouses are designed for the loading and unloading of goods directly from railways, airports, or seaports. They often have cranes and forklifts for moving goods, which are usually placed on ISO standard pallets and then loaded into pallet racks. Stored goods can include any raw materials, packing materials, spare parts, components, or finished goods associated with agriculture, manufacturing, and production.
Pallet rack is a material handling storage aid system designed to store materials on pallets (or “skids”). Although there are many varieties of pallet racking, all types allow for the storage of palletized materials in horizontal rows with multiple levels. Forklift trucks are usually required to place the loaded pallets onto the racks for storage. Since the Second World War, pallet racks have become a ubiquitous element of most modern warehouses, manufacturing facilities, retail centers, and other storage and distribution facilities. All types of pallet racking increase storage density of the stored goods. Costs associated with the racking increases with increasing storage density.
A twistlock or twist lock, together with matching corner castings, as defined in norms including ISO 1161:1984, form a standardized (rotating) connector system, for connecting and securing intermodal, and predominantly ISO-standard international shipping containers. The primary uses are to securely stack containers, for locking them into place on a container ship, semi-trailer or rail carriage, and for lifting and handling by specific container-handling equipment, like straddle carriers, reach stackers, container-handling forklifts, sidelifters, and various types of container cranes.
Twist-locks also have to be used when stacking containers shorter than 40 feet (12 m) together with 40‑foot and longer containers. Containers shorter than 40 feet containers must be joined together horizontally with twist-locks, to form a rigid combined whole 40 feet in length, to make them stackable and be able to support and be supported by an ISO standard 40- or 45‑foot container stacked underneath or above them.
The term unit load refers to the size of an assemblage into which a number of individual items are combined for ease of storage and handling, for example a pallet load represents a unit load which can be moved easily with a pallet jack or forklift truck, or a container load represents a unit for shipping purposes. A unit load can be packed tightly into a warehouse rack, intermodal container, truck or boxcars, yet can be easily broken apart at a distribution point, usually a distribution center, wholesaler, or retail store for sale to consumers or for use.