Thursday, 27 August 2015

Unfitting Cargo Vans With Storage Accessories For Maximum Productivity

Upfitting, a fairly involved process, can be easily broken down into smaller parts for maximizing productivity and benefitting any organization’s bottom line. For instance, enhancing of product visibility goes a long way in helping technicians keep track of their inventory in more reliable and accurate ways. Read on for smarter ways of keeping your van organized on the basis of all tasks on hand, and gaining added efficiency.

Pull Out Drawers and other Storage Units

Regardless of whether you are using your cargo van for ferrying flowers, wood, linen or other materials, you need smartly designed drawer and shelving systems for increasing your productivity quotient. You may like to choose from a wide range of partitions, spot mirrors, ladder racks, conduit carriers, pull out drawers, and other up fits for directly impacting work efficiency. Yes, there’s no dearth of configurations and products for fleet managers and other commercial van owners to consider while up fitting their vehicles.

If you are looking towards purchasing pull-out drawers or other storage accessories for your vans, then these seven factors are to be kept in mind for gaining optimum benefits from your purchases.

1. Take Inventory

You need to keep the typical load inventory in mind while deciding upon what equipment, parts, tools, and products that the vans are expected to haul on a daily basis. Are you planning to haul these occasionally? Would you require more space for extra bulky loads? Getting a clear insight of the fleet’s overall needs for storage will help you understand your exact storage needs, the number of pull out drawers that you need to install for business purposes, and so forth.

2. Measure any Repetitions

There are some equipment and tools that technicians on the move need on a recurrent basis. They need to keep pulling them out as they flit from one address to another. Be it a plumbing, carpentry, TV repair or any other service provision company, there are some products and parts that need to be accessed frequently, and therefore, should be stored accordingly. In general, users like placing their cargo and tools separately. For instance, some drivers like carrying their tool belts inside the cab, while others prefer placing it by their side doors. There are no standardized positions for placing these storage units, and their installation processes differ from one van to the other.

3. Ergonomic Factors

Van owners are used to performing repetitive tasks that enhance their risk of injury, muscle strain, and lost productivity in case their vehicles are not upfitted keeping ergonomic factors in mind. For instance, repetitive motion injury in technicians can be avoided by investing in easy-to-maintain lifts and ladders for technicians. You may also like to buy ergonomically designed pull out drawers that exhibit all that’s kept inside clearly. Such drawers don’t strain the back and legs of technicians when they are constantly leaning pick up things—light and heavy alike. These factors are of special concern if there are users and technicians climbing on tires and bumpers for reaching the upper areas of tall racks and drawers; the opportunities for slips and falls are greater in these cases.

4. Optimum Protection

If you are planning to move around fragile or delicate cargo that’s prone to higher risk of damages, then you need to choose your pull out drawers and racks accordingly. For instance, electricians are known to haul electrical components like bulbs, light switches, etc. that may break if thrown along with other tools at the back of their vans. Here, a pull out drawer unit comes to their rescue and goes a long way in protecting those delicate parts. This way, the components also look as good as new when they reach a customer’s facility.
Protection from theft is another concern that technicians with expensive components, testing equipment and tools have to go through on a daily basis; unless they have lockable storage units and doors in place.

5. Improved Visibility

Have you depleted your inventory? Have you started for the day’s work with all tools in place? Have you managed to leave behind a testing tool at the customer’s store? These and other such concerns are best handled by organizing the pull out drawers in your van in such a way that all your important belongings can be found easily and quickly. Efficient cargo management is one of the primary benefits of units that allow enhanced visibility.

6. Better Safety

Partitions such as air bags are oft avoided by van users looking for more space thorough upfitting. Hey, they are important too. But then, such partitions serve as essential safety features and have cargo management system designed around them for best fits. The other safety upfits that are being commonly purchased these days include backup cameras, spot mirrors, and parking sensors.

7. Consider Materials too !

Steel, aluminum, composite, or something else?—what’s best for van drawers, shelving, and other upfits? Traditional steel interiors are the most cost-effective options while upfits in composite and aluminum materials lay more stress on fuel economy because of their light-weight. For instance, if your vehicle is expected to carry different types of weights in varying road conditions such as dirt roads, gravel roads, or pot holed roads, then, steel pull out drawers and other upfits prove to be your best option.

Are you ready for the magic of pull-out drawers?

Friday, 21 August 2015

Choose The Right Ladder Roof And Rack For Your Job

roof racks


When you go about the task of selecting the right ladder roof for your van, truck or fleet vehicle, you need to consider the van roof height, storage, need for accessibility, and budget. Yes, there’s a ladder available for each fleet need. Now that you have decided to invest in a proper ladder roof selection for your commercial van, do get on with an analysis of its cargo capacity, initial cost, worker safety, productivity, benefits and more. Usually priced at $200 to $2,000 per ladder rack, they are equipped to handle different kinds of jobs to perfection. Read on for more.

Know the Available Options in Ladder Racks 

At the very onset, it’s essential to gain familiarity about the various kinds of ladder racks, their limitations and strengths, and whether they are well equipped to suit your purpose, or not. In general, these ladder roofs are available in three main categories: lock-down, utility, and drop-down. A simple breakdown of these three main categories, along with their distinctive pros and cons, are given below for your understanding. Ensure that you buy the one that fits your specific applications to the hilt.

Utility Racks

Suited for standard and compact sized roofs for full size vans, these utility racks boast of a high flexibility quotient and are capable of hauling different material types and ladders alike. Their USP is their lowest price points. One of the drawbacks of these racks is that they are a tad difficult to access and have a potential to encourage overloading. Most economic among them all, these racks are simple in design and consist of 2-3 adjustable crossbars that can be separately mounted on top of a van. They may also be mounted with ease on a single-piece gridiron platform that has adjustable crossbars and a fixed perimeter.

These utility racks offer the flexibility of carrying materials like ladders, pipe and lumber, etc. They can be secured on to the rack use straps, bungee cords, or tie downs. In line with the weight of these ladders, and the frequency with which they will be accessing the racks, the problems arising in the way of loading and unloading ladders may increase the risk factors of injuries. This leads to lost productivity and expensive claims for your business—so, choose accordingly.

Yet another concern that comes in the way of utility racks is that the cargo/ load has to be secured by using straps or bungee cord, sans the standard “foolproof” mechanisms for locking down cargo. This proves to be a headache for most fleet managers responsible for handling multiple vans; as they keep hoping that their drivers would follow proper procedures headaches to avoid any accidents.

Rack Fits: GM full-size vans, Cargo Trailers, Transit Connect, Nissan NV200, Nissan NV Cargo, Sprinter Vans, Ford full-size vans.

Lock-Down Racks

Compact and standard-roof for full-sized vans, lock-down racks are also easy-to-use, and are available with dependable locking mechanisms. They may offer difficulty of access to high-roof vans and have certain cargo limitations too. Available in double and single-sided configurations, these lock down racks are appropriate for supporting one ladder roof on each side of the vehicle. These racks have easy-to-use torsion systems that secure the ladder into place to perfection. Though they are exclusively designed for hauling ladders, they are often packaged with accessories like conduit carriers, which are much compatible with their style.

As far as pricing is concerned, these lock-down racks usually represent mid-level options that range from $300 to $800, in line with single/ double side installation as well as other factors. Easy to unload and load, lock-down racks are specific to ladders and do not require straps or bungee cords as in the case of a utility rack. Their reliable locking mechanisms also help in eliminating opportunities for user error, or whether the ladders are tied down properly or not.

Rack Fits: Cam GM full-size vans, Ford full-size vans, Nissan NV200, Transit Connect, RAM CV, Pickup Trucks.

Ladder Roof for Commercial Uses

Roof racks that are specifically designed for commercial vans are equipped to handle heavier loads. They usually have side railings for keeping their loads in place and from preventing them from rolling off mobile vans. The related accessory lines packaged with these racks for commercial users include pipe clamps, board stops, load stops, and ladder clamps. Moreover, there are racks that are manufactured for one type of gear, carrying different types of loads in different seasons, and for the easy installation of load accessories.