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hauling vehicles. Field or standard boxes were moved to the edge of the 

 orchard on pallets. They were either loaded onto, or placed into a block for 

 picking up by various types of transportation vehicles. All handling at the 

 storage and packinghouse was done by industrial forklift trucks. Loose field 

 or standard boxes were handled in 48-box loads on 40- by 48-inch pallets. 

 Pallet boxes were handled two at a time. Generally the fruit was moved directly 

 to storage. Later it was moved to the dumper. After packing and segregating, 

 it was moved back into cold storage on pallets. At the appropriate time the 

 packed fruit was moved to railroad cars on pallets for loading out. 



For the comparisons made in this report, it is assumed that the cycle of 

 operations consists of loading empty boxes or pallet boxes onto various trans- 

 porting vehicles (figs. 17, 18, and 19), transporting empties to the orchard, 

 approximately 4 miles, or 20,000 feet, from the storage and packinghouse, un- 

 loading transportation vehicles, transporting empty containers approximately 

 500 feet into the orchard, filling the containers, transporting full containers 

 500 feet from picking point to loading area at the edge of the orchard, 

 loading transporting vehicles (fig. 20), transporting full boxes or pallet 

 boxes 20,000 feet back to the storage and packinghouse, unload vehicles, 

 transporting a distance of 200 feet from the transportation equipment to cold 

 storage (fig. 21), transporting full containers of fruit a distance of 200 feet 

 from storage to the dumper, dumping fruit, returning empties to box storage, 

 segregating packed fruit, transporting packed fruit back to storage a distance 

 of 160 feet and moving the packed fruit from storage to the refrigerator car 

 for loading a distance of 110 feet. 



In connection with the use of the various handling methods it was 

 assumed that the dumping rate was 400 loose standard boxes, or the equivalent, 

 when pallet boxes were being moved to the packing line. 



Labo r 



Time studies were made of the various operations involved in moving 

 containers to the orchard, moving pallet loads or pallet boxes of fruit from 

 orchard to storage and packinghouse, and in moving fruit and container into, 

 within, and out of these houses. This was done in order to determine the 

 labor inputs required for these operations. Accepted time study techniques 

 were used with allowances made for fatigue and personal needs. The total 

 labor requirements shown in table 4, in addition to productive labor, include 

 unproductive time of workers caused by different rates of productivity of 

 other crew members and machine regulated wait time. 



For the respective methods shown in the table, the labor requirements 



when handling loose standard boxes in 48-box pallet loads are higher than that 



for the 29-inch high pallet box and somewhat higher than that for the 36-inch 

 high pallet box. 



