Receiving Fruits and Vegetables in Wholesale Warehouses

Robert K. Bogardus and Richard T. Ferris

No 312095, Marketing Research Reports from United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service, Transportation and Marketing Program

Abstract: Excerpts from the report: For the wholesale distributor of fresh fruits and vegetables, handling the product begins when the refrigerated truck or railroad car is moved into position at the warehouse receiving dock. This report deals with the work and equipment required to unload the commodities from the carrier and to move and store them. Five types of material-handling equipment were observed and studied. These are: two-wheel handtrucks; two-wheel clamp trucks; semi-live skids and jacks; dead skids and low-lift platform trucks; and pallets and forklift trucks. More than one method of operation was used with each type of equipment. Agricultural Marketing Service industrial engineers studied the use of handling equipment under commercial operating conditions in independently located warehouses operated by wholesale distributors. All of the wholesalers received the same variety of fruits and vegetables. Industrial engineering techniques were used to obtain reliable data on the methods and equipment used. The data were collected in a manner that made it possible to eliminate the effect of unnecessary work and avoidable delays. As a result, the labor and equipment requirements in this report will provide the lowest operating cost possible for the indicated method and crew arrangement. Details on the techniques are in the appendix.

Keywords: Labor and Human Capital; Marketing; Production Economics; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; Research Methods/Statistical Methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56
Date: 1961-10
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uamsmr:312095

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.312095

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