Yeah we thought about spacing the boxes, but that would make us lose out on space as well.

Does anyone know the ballpark of how much it costs to install the wire guidance system? Per foot or yard?

Thanks

Your setup limits your options. Either widen isles to allow a reach truck to function or use the turret truck very carefully. You could space the boxes to allow a swing mast truck. The swing mast or the reach truck will lower your warehouse capacity.

The wall height of the warehouse is 14 feet high. We are not going to use pallet rack but instead, We would be stacking custom made wooden boxes to max height of the ceiling side by side.

We would like to use a drexel, but due to the boxes touching side by side there would not be room to allow the boxes to slide out.

This is a unique setup that attempts to maximize use of warehouse. The SKUs are very slow turnover items and sometimes sit for years.

Rail guidance is a good alternative BUT you will have to either place extra pallets on the floor of each location in your racking OR fit bottom longitudinally beams to the racking to lift the storage locations above the guidance rails.

The angle iron rails will block the bottom floor locations in the rack unless you do one of the above alternatives.

There is an alternative to wire guidance, you can roller guide the trucks. This requires mounting angle iron rails on the floor. This is usually cheaper than adding wire guidance. The chassis has plates mounted to the four corners of the unit. the plates have poly rollers mounted.

You would have to be very careful with your alignment. If you are net aligned with the load you will need to move the chassis. A lot depends on how high you plan on stacking.

As long as you do not move forward or backward while the mast is in the air wouldn't it be the same thing as using a drexel on the ground?
Thanks for the help, have done research, but there is only so much info out there on these lifts.

The Drexel is a different design. You need to do some research. The operator stays on the ground with the chassis. The primary difference between a Drexel or Bendi and a standard sit down rider is the swing mast.

Thanks for the responses. What I do not understand is if the Drexel can go down a narrow aisle without wire guides why couldn't the Raymond? (I have driven neither so do not know the feel of them)

If the aisles are 65 inches do you think it would be wide enough for non wire guided?

It just depends on how wide your aisle are. If you have plenty of extra room on each side you should be fine. But if not. It would be very dangerous! I would not try taking a VNA down a narrow aisle without rail or wire guidance.

These type of trucks are not designed to use without some type of guidance. There are alternatives to a mini mast type of truck. Depending on the height you are trying to use it at. Bendi has a articulated truck that work in narrow isle. stand up reach trucks will also work in narrow isles. I would not use a man up turret truck without guidance.

I work on Raymond "Swing Reach" turret trucks a few times per month.

Very little damage occurs to these machines due to 2 reasons.
Wire Guidance, & very safe operators.

I can't say with absolute certainty that these machines are safer with wire guidance, or safer with very careful operators.

The trouble here is finding & hiring the right candidates/employees that can be trusted with such expensive machinery.

Danger always occurs when an operator is distracted while they are using any type of machinery.