Just wanted to quickly discuss another piece of equipment we needed to buy: a dock plate. For those who don’t know what a dock plate is, a dock plate bridges the gap between the warehouse and the back of a truck for loading and unloading in a recessed loading dock. I had no idea that they were so expensive though (well maybe not compared to a lot of our equipment, but it was an unaccounted for piece of equipment we did not incorporate into our business plan, that should not have overlooked).
Why not just build a sturdy one out of wood your ask? Well the reason is simple, we need it to be able to support the weight of our forklift as well as the weight of the product the forklift carries. Our forklift weighs around 9000 lbs and a pallet of kegs weighs well over 1000 lbs. That’s a lot of weight and not worth taking any chances with.
We looked into various options, but at the end of the day we decided to purchase a used one from the former tenants of our building, Professional Machinery. We found that it was about the same price to purchase a new one, but it would cost several hundred dollars more to ship and at the end of the day, they are virtually indestructible and felt purchasing the one from Professional Machinery was still a good investment. The one we purchased is rated for 13,000 lbs , more than enough for our needs. It requires a forklift to move around and is what I want to hide behind in the event of a shootout.