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boxes were hauled on the return trip to the orchard, 

 packing plant to the orchard was very short. 



The distance from the 



At Storage and Packinghouse 



Unloading and handling pallet boxes at storage was done with the same 

 equipment used for handling unit loads on pallets (fig. 12). Although oper- 

 ating methods are a little different, filled pallet boxes were found to be 

 more stable than individual boxes on pallets so tying was unnecessary to assure 

 stability of the load. In fact, the stability of the stacks was greater in 

 storage though the stacking operation was found to be a little more time con- 

 suming. Some boxes went into cold storage and others direct to the packing 

 line, depending upon the plant operations and capacities. Two Yakima plants 

 used their 6,000 pallet boxes an average of about one and a half times during 

 the 1957 season. 



There was evidence that the smaller, 1-ton, industrial forklift truck 

 was somewhat inadequate apparently because 2 pallet boxes were a slightly 

 larger load than these lift trucks were capable of handling. The use of 

 pallet boxes may call for heavier lift-truck equipment to handle greater loads 

 with ease. The exact placement necessary occasionally required the lift-truck 

 operator to back up and come in to place his load two or three times. This 

 would suggest that use of side-shift equipment on lift trucks in the pallet-box 

 operation would be desirable. 



NEC BN-5796 



Figure 12. — Unloading pallet boxes of apples from a motortruck at the 

 storage plant with an industrial forklift truck. 



