Using Slip Sheets Can Save Money –But Only with the Right Forklift Attachment
Pallets have long been essential for storing and transporting various products, including beverages, consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, and appliances. However, exploring alternatives like slip sheets can offer cost savings and enhanced efficiency. A slip sheet is a thin, pallet-sized sheet made from laminated heavy-duty paperboard, durable plastic, or corrugated fiberboard. To handle slip sheets effectively, specialized forklift attachments such as push-pull attachments or roller-equipped forks are crucial.
Before we jump into the equipment, here’s a bit of background on slip sheets and why your operation may use them as a pallet alternative.
What Is a Slip Sheet?
There are several different types of slip sheets, ranging from inexpensive fiberboard ( for lighter loads) to polypropylene (for heavier loads and durability for tough operations). There are also hybrid types for various uses. It’s important to select the right type to ensure you haven’t overspend or underspecified, resulting in safety or product damage concerns.
Slip sheets are several inches longer and wider than a standard pallet, allowing a push-pull forklift attachment gripper to grab the sheet.
Slip Sheets Advantages:
- Safety – They weigh next to nothing, making them much easier to handle, and they do not splinter like wood pallets.
- Durability – Polypropolene slip sheets are very durable and will last a lot longer than wooden pallets, lowering your replacement costs. Just ensure you have a process to ensure you get them all back.
- Much lower material cost – A slip sheet can cost 10% of the price of a pallet.
- Lower transportation cost – A slip sheet weighs 5% of the weight of a pallet and eliminates 4” of height, resulting in a considerable saving in transportation costs.
- Space-saving – Slip sheets require less storage space, leaving more room for inventory in your warehouse.
- Environmentally friendly—Slip sheets are eco-friendly, reusable, recyclable, and take less landfill space compared to bulkier, non-recyclable pallets that require return for repairs and proper disposal. They use fewer natural resources and produce less pollution during production and shipping.
- Less susceptible to contamination – Pallets can become contaminated with spilled product, compromising their reuse. They are also the ideal nesting spots for insects and rodents. A contaminated slip sheet can just be discarded or recycled.
- Ideal for International Shipping – Your U.S. pallet will be useless overseas and could just wind up in the trash. It’s too expensive to return it.
Slip Sheet Considerations
Slip sheets definitely have their advantages, but it’s also important to know their limitations before making the switch. Here are some of the inherent challenges of using slip sheets vs. pallets.
- Require special attachments – A retractable push-pull forklift attachment or roller-equipped forks are necessary for handling slip sheets.
- Higher level of operator training – Handling, picking, and depositing a slip sheet load is slightly more complicated than pallet handling. The process requires a series of steps and a bit more care, making proper forklift training critical.
- Loads must be unitized – Loose cartons or items do not hold up well on slip sheets. You must strap, shrink-wrap, or stretch-wrap the load to ensure it remains intact.
- Require decking if rack stored – Slip-sheet loads cannot be stored directly on pallet racking. Generally, you’ll need to use wire decking to accommodate the less rigid aspect of a load stored on a slip sheet.
- Reduced forklift capacity – A push-pull attachment is heavy and will reduce the forklift’s lifting capacity. Operators need to be made aware of this capacity change. For more information about the effects of forklift attachments, take a look at our blog.
- Investment in a forklift attachment – Switching to slip sheets requires an upfront investment in push-pull or roller fork attachments.
- Increased service and maintenance costs – Forklift attachments require servicing over their lifespan. These items should be included in your planned maintenance to minimize repair costs and ensure safe, effective use.
Push-Pull Forklift Attachment
About Those Special Forklift Attachments For Slip Sheets
There are two types of forklift attachments for handling slip sheets: push-pull attachments and roller fork attachments. Let’s look at each of them.
Push-Pull Forklift Attachments
These attachments feature platens, which are flatter than standard forklift forks and slide under the slip sheet; a pantograph, which is a scissors-like extension mechanism that allows the load to be pushed off the platens; and grippers that securely grab the slip sheet and pull it onto the platens.
Push-pull attachments are available in load-handling capacities of up to 4,500 lb. Additionally, there are versatile push-pull forklift attachments designed to handle both slip sheets and pallets and quick-mount attachments that don’t require the removal of the forklift’s forks and can be installed or removed in under a minute.
Roller-Style Forks
These special kinds of forks have retractable, internal rolling mechanisms that allow frictionless loading and unloading of pallets and slip sheets. Roller forks hang on a standard forklift carriage and are a lighter, more cost-effective option than push-pull attachments for certain applications. While loads can be lifted directly off the floor, a specially designed roller fork pallet with cutouts to accommodate the forks simplifies lifting a load on a slip sheet.
Push-Pull Attachment with Roller Forks
This versatile combination allows you to handle pallets and slip sheets, as well as large boxes, cartons, and large rolls of material.
The Takeaway
Slip sheets aren’t suitable for all operations, and having a professional with material handling and attachment experience can help you determine their appropriateness for your needs.
While slip sheets offer a less costly, more sanitary, and environmentally friendly alternative to pallets, they require a forklift attachment to handle them, and specific training on push-pull attachments or roller-style forks is essential due to the added care and technique needed.
At Apex, our material-handling experts can assess your operation and recommend the ideal solution, whether it’s push-pull or specialty fork attachments. We also provide ongoing support to keep your equipment running smoothly.
Contact your Apex rep today for more information and a quote.
Need forklift operator training? Just call Apex to schedule a class for your team.
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