Watch a forklift for long enough and you’ll notice something curious.
Sometimes it’s carrying a pallet.
Sometimes it isn’t.
An operator delivers a load to one end of the warehouse and drives all the way back empty. Another forklift crosses the building to collect something. Minutes later, somebody else travels almost exactly the same route.
Each individual journey looks insignificant.
But multiply those movements across several forklifts, eight-hour shifts and hundreds of working days, and empty travel can quietly consume an enormous amount of time.
The forklift is moving. The operator is working. Energy is being used.
But nothing is actually being transported.
Understanding these empty journeys can reveal surprisingly large opportunities to make a warehouse more efficient.
Movement and Productivity Aren’t the Same Thing
A busy warehouse looks productive.
Forklifts travel constantly. People walk between locations. Pallets move in every direction.
But activity alone doesn’t tell us how efficiently the operation is functioning.
Imagine two forklift operators each move 50 pallets during a shift.
One travels 15 kilometres to achieve it.
The other travels 10.
The output looks identical.
The effort required to achieve it isn’t.
Real-World Example: The Long Drive Back
Consider a warehouse where finished products are collected from production and transported to dispatch.
The forklift travels 150 metres carrying a pallet.
After dropping it off, the operator returns 150 metres empty.
That’s 300 metres of travel for one productive movement.
If the journey happens 30 times during a shift, the forklift covers around nine kilometres on that single task.
Half of it is empty.
Now imagine there are several forklifts completing similar journeys every day.
Suddenly, a small inefficiency becomes an operational pattern.
The Cost Isn’t Just Energy
The obvious consequence of unnecessary travel is increased energy use.
But the real cost is much broader.
Additional travel can mean:
- More operating hours on equipment.
- Greater tyre wear.
- More servicing requirements over time.
- Additional congestion.
- More operator time spent travelling.
- Less capacity for productive tasks.
Each individual cost may be relatively small.
Across an entire fleet, they can become significant.
Empty Travel Also Creates Traffic
This is one of the most overlooked consequences.
A forklift doesn’t stop occupying space just because its forks are empty.
Every unnecessary journey still adds another vehicle to warehouse traffic.
That can create:
- More interaction between forklifts.
- More waiting at junctions.
- More congestion in narrow aisles.
- More interaction with pedestrians.
Reducing unnecessary journeys can therefore improve both productivity and the overall flow of the site.
Why Do Empty Journeys Happen?
Some empty travel is unavoidable.
A forklift has to reach the next load somehow.
But repeated patterns can reveal wider issues.
Common causes include:
- Poorly positioned stock.
- Storage areas that have evolved without much planning.
- Operators receiving jobs individually rather than in logical sequences.
- Frequently used products being stored too far from where they’re needed.
- Different departments working independently rather than coordinating movements.
Often, nobody deliberately designed the inefficient process.
It simply developed over time.
The Warehouse That Grew Around Itself
This is particularly common in successful businesses.
A company starts with one warehouse unit.
Then demand increases.
Another storage area is added.
A new production line arrives.
Dispatch moves to create more room.
Stock locations change.
Five years later, the business is significantly larger, but forklifts are still following routes created when the operation looked completely different.
What once made sense no longer does.
Operators Usually Know Where the Waste Is
If you want to identify inefficient journeys, one of the best places to start is surprisingly simple.
Ask the forklift operators.
They travel through the operation every day.
They know which journeys feel repetitive.
They know which locations cause congestion.
They know which loads seem to travel backwards and forwards unnecessarily.
A ten-minute conversation with experienced operators can sometimes identify improvements that aren’t obvious from an office.
Look at the Return Journey
A useful question for any repetitive forklift task is:
“What happens on the way back?”
If the answer is always “nothing”, there may be an opportunity.
Could another load be collected nearby?
Could empty pallets be returned?
Could two movements be combined?
Could the sequence of jobs be changed?
Not every empty journey can or should be eliminated. Trying to optimise every metre can itself create unnecessary complexity.
The aim is to identify obvious repeated waste.
Measure Before Changing Anything
Businesses don’t necessarily need sophisticated technology to begin investigating forklift travel.
Start with observation.
Choose one common task and record:
- Where the forklift starts.
- Where it travels.
- Whether it is loaded or empty.
- How long the journey takes.
- How often it happens during a shift.
Even a simple sketch of the route can be revealing.
If the same long empty journey appears repeatedly, investigate why.
Don’t Turn Efficiency Into Pressure
There is an important warning here.
Reducing unnecessary travel should never become an excuse to pressure operators into rushing.
The objective is to remove wasted movement, not make productive movement faster.
A forklift travelling fewer unnecessary metres at a controlled speed is more efficient.
A forklift travelling the same inefficient route faster isn’t.
Better Planning Makes Operators’ Jobs Easier
Good operational design doesn’t just benefit the company’s costs.
It can make the working day less frustrating for operators.
Fewer unnecessary journeys can mean:
- Less congestion.
- More predictable workflows.
- Less waiting.
- Clearer priorities.
- More productive use of time.
That’s a win for both the business and the people working within it.
A Simple Challenge for Warehouse Managers
Spend 30 minutes watching one forklift.
Don’t assess the operator.
Assess the journey.
Every time the truck moves, ask:
“Why is it going there?”
Then ask:
“What is it carrying on the way back?”
You may discover that the operator is working perfectly within a process that could itself be improved.
Conclusion
Empty forklift journeys are easy to ignore because everybody still looks busy.
But activity and productivity aren’t the same thing.
Every unnecessary journey consumes operator time, equipment capacity and space within the warehouse.
The answer isn’t to make operators drive faster. It’s to design operations that require less unnecessary driving in the first place.
At RS Forklift Training, we know that good forklift operation isn’t just about controlling the truck. Operators are part of a much larger logistics system, and understanding how their work fits into that system can help businesses become safer, smoother and more productive.
“`
