Materials Handling
Materials handling: how to choose
Moving a full pallet, a stack of cartons, a 205-litre drum or a machine on skates round a warehouse or site? EHI supplies thousands of Australian warehouses, and we'll help you match the gear to the job.
The load in front of you, and how far it has to travel, decide which family of equipment you need. A full Australian pallet is a job for a pallet jack, a fridge goes on a fridge trolley, and a lathe rolls across the workshop floor on load skates.
Our pallet jack is the Easyroll Standard Pallet Truck 2500kg. At 550mm overall it's a touch wider than a typical Euro-pallet jack (520mm to 540mm) and well under the 685mm or so a standard Australian pallet (1165 x 1165mm) suits. If that's what you run, talk to our team before you order and we'll help you check it against your pallets.
1.Which equipment for which load
| The load | Reach for |
|---|---|
| A pallet | Pallet jacks & trucks (below) |
| Cartons, boxes, flat or stacked goods | Trolleys & hand trucks, platform trolleys |
| The same load, same trip, all day | Roller conveyors |
| Order picking down an aisle | Picking trolleys, tiered carts |
| Drums | Drum handling |
| Gas cylinders | Cylinder trolleys |
| A machine, crate or piece of plant | Dollies, load & machine skates |
| Lifting a load to working height | Scissor lift tables, hydraulic lifting |
| A fridge or tall appliance | Fridge trolleys |
| A shipping container | Container mobility |
| Materials around a yard or site | Wheelbarrows |
| Holding a load on a truck or trailer | Tie-down straps |
| Making your own bench or rack mobile | Castors & wheels - Castor buyer's guide |
2.How to choose a pallet jack
Easyroll Pallet Truck2500kg, 550mm wide, tandem PU rollersShop this pallet jackA pallet jack slides two forks (the trade calls them tines) under a pallet, lifts it just clear of the floor and lets one person wheel it away. The Easyroll Standard Pallet Truck 2500kg has 1100 x 160mm tines, an 85mm to 200mm lift and tandem polyurethane load rollers.
| Spec | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Capacity | The usual rating for a hand pallet jack is 2500kg, but that's a market norm rather than a standard. In Australia these pedestrian-propelled trucks fall under AS 5144.5. Pick a rating above your heaviest pallet, not your average one. |
| Tines (forks) | The Easyroll's tines are 1100 x 160mm, and the jack is 550mm across overall. A standard Australian pallet (1165 x 1165mm) suits a jack about 685mm across the forks, and a Euro pallet takes 520mm to 540mm. Match the jack's width to the pallets you handle day to day. |
| Wheels & rollers | Polyurethane (PU) wheels are quieter than nylon and don't mark the floor, while nylon holds up better on floors that are rough, wet or covered in debris. The Easyroll runs tandem PU load rollers (a pair under each fork), so it's a good fit for a sealed warehouse floor. |
| Lift | The Easyroll lifts 85mm to 200mm, which is low enough to enter the pallet and high enough to clear the floor. If you handle low-profile pallets, measure the entry height first, because the forks sit at 85mm fully lowered. |
| Hand or electric | A hand jack is right for short, occasional runs. If it's long hauls or all-day use, an electric jack will save your team's backs. |
| Specialty | Cold stores, meat rooms and washdown areas call for a galvanised or stainless jack. A high-lift scissor jack is only for skids and open-bottom pallets, because it will damage the bottom boards of a standard pallet. If you have something unique or special in mind, get in touch with one of our experts. |
There are two more things to check before you buy or use one. The first is fork length against the pallet behind: the Easyroll's 1100mm tines sit inside a 1165mm Australian pallet, so they won't push into the next one in the row. The second is braking: most manual jacks have no brake, so keep a loaded one off ramps and gradients, and push it from the handle rather than pulling it. You'll find the Easyroll in our pallet trucks collection.
3.Trolleys, hand trucks and carts
Once the load is off the pallet, most moving is done on a trolley. Hand trucks and trolleys tip a stack of cartons or a couple of gas bottles back onto two wheels, and the range includes the Double Cylinder Trolley and the Heavy Duty Oxy Acetylene Trolley for cylinders. Platform trolleys take bulky or awkward loads flat on a single deck. Picking trolleys carry orders on two or three tiers as you work down the aisles, and most are rated between 150kg and 450kg. For a fridge or other tall appliance, our fridge trolleys (the Easyroll Stair Climbers Fridge Trolley 250kg and Heavy Duty Fridge Trolley 250kg) both ratchet-strap it to the frame.
Spare wheels and the Easyroll Fridge Trolley Ratchet keep existing Easyroll trolleys running, so a worn tyre doesn't mean a new trolley. The trolley buyer's guide goes further into load ratings, decks and wheels.
4.Roller conveyors
When the same load makes the same trip all day, on a packing line, a dispatch bench or loading a truck, a conveyor beats carrying it. Conveyors are the deepest part of our materials handling range, with 36 products covering rollers, frames, H-stands, expandable conveyors and ball transfer rollers.
| Decision | What to know |
|---|---|
| Gravity or powered | Gravity (unpowered) rollers move goods on a slight fall or a push, and with no motor they're cheap and there's nothing to plug in. Powered or live-roller lines suit sustained throughput, uphill runs and accumulating loads, but everything in our range is unpowered. |
| Roller pitch | Pitch is the distance between roller centres. Keep at least three rollers under your shortest item at all times, which means a pitch of no more than a third of its length, or short items dip and stall. |
| Rollers or skate wheels | Full-width rollers support heavy, uneven or open-bottomed loads, while skate-wheel tracks roll light, flat-bottomed cartons with less friction. |
| Straight or flexible | Fixed straight sections suit a set line. Expandable conveyors run on castors, so they curve around obstacles, reach out onto a truck and concertina back for storage. |
Check the roller rating against your heaviest item. Light 38mm rollers carry about 50kg each, while our 50mm Easyroll steel conveyor rollers are rated at 110kg per roller and the Easyroll Polly Conveyor Rollers at 50kg. Your smallest carton sets the pitch, and that's the one to measure when you choose a frame.
5.Lifting, skates and specialist handling
Scissor lift tables
A scissor lift table raises the load to working height, so nobody spends the day bent over it. We stock four Easyroll hydraulic scissor lift tables, from the 227kg model up to the 1000kg, with the 350kg and 455kg in between. Size the table to the heaviest thing that will sit on it, and go by the load capacity in its specs. When the load has to go up for stacking, there's the Easyroll 1.5M Hydraulic Platform Stacker 400kg, which is made to order.
Drum handling
A full 205-litre drum weighs roughly 190kg to 225kg, and it's round, which is why drums get handling gear of their own. All three of our Easyroll drum handlers are rated above a full drum: the Heavy Duty Drum Dolly 410kg runs on polyurethane wheels, the Heavy Duty Drum Carrier 360kg on cast iron wheels, and the Heavy Duty Drum Rack Cradle 300kg gives a drum a stable base.
Load skates and dollies
Load skates are low steel carriages on small wheels that go under a heavy machine so it can roll. The trade also calls them machine skates. Our range runs from the Easyroll Load Moving Skates 2000kg to the Easyroll Roller Skate 15T, for shifting plant across a smooth factory floor. You'll need to lift the machine slightly to slide them under. For lighter one-offs there's the Easyroll Tub Dolly 400kg for indoor work, and the All Terrain Dolly 150kg, which runs on 260mm rubber wheels and works outdoors as well.
Containers and wheelbarrows
For moving a shipping container, the Easyroll Container Moving Twist Lock fits into the ISO 1161 corner castings (the steel fittings on each corner of the container) and is made to suit X1 series castors. Round the yard, our 100L wheelbarrows come with a narrow 4.00-8 wheel or a wide 650-8 wheel.
6.Tie-down straps and load restraint
Once a load is on the truck, Australian law says it has to be restrained, under the Heavy Vehicle (Mass, Dimension and Loading) National Regulation. Restraint gear should meet AS/NZS 4380, and a strap is listed with two numbers: its lashing capacity and its breaking strength.
Lashing Capacity (LC) is the load a strap is rated to hold in use, and it's the number to buy on. AS/NZS 4380 defines it as half the strap's minimum breaking strength. The Fasty Ratchet 10M x 50mm Orange Tie Down Hook & Keeper, for example, has an LC of 2500kg and a breaking strength of 5000kg. The NHVR Load Restraint Guide 2025 says restraint must hold 0.8g forwards, 0.5g sideways and rearwards, and 0.2g upwards when you're relying on friction. On a 1000kg load, 0.8g forwards means the restraint has to hold back 800kg. Ratchet straps let you pre-tension a heavy load for transport, and the Rope Ratchet tie-down rope in 3mm, 6mm and 10mm is for the smallest loads. Check the webbing before each trip, and retire any strap that's frayed, cut or torn.
Some product titles quote the breaking strength rather than the LC, so read the Lashing Capacity in each strap's specs.
If your load isn't in the table at the top, or it's a mix of several, we can work out what moves it.
Moving something awkward?
Tell us what you're moving, how heavy and how far, and our team will point you at the right gear.
