Sponsored by MANUPACK
A simple recurring task can, after a few weeks, become a waste of time and money that could be solved mechanically and effortlessly.
Unloading a small van with a pallet of materials might seem like a minor task, but when repeated daily, the time spent adds up to a considerable cost. In a simple example, manually unloading and moving a pallet with ten 10kg bags of cement can take between 10 and 15 minutes of combined work for two people , while with a manual stacker, the same operation can be performed by a single person in approximately one to two minutes. Repeated daily, this difference can translate into hundreds of euros in savings per month.
100 kilos, 20 meters and two ways to do the same job
Imagine a small construction project. A van arrives with a pallet containing 10 bags of cement, each weighing 10 kg.
It's a 100 kg load that needs to be unloaded and moved about 20 meters.
If two workers perform the operation manually, handling the sacks and moving them to the destination point, we can estimate a time of between 10-15 minutes.
But the important data for a company is not just those minutes: it's the accumulated working hours.
Two people working for 10 minutes equates to 20 minutes of work. If this operation is performed every day of the week, that's 100 minutes, which over the course of a month could amount to 2000 minutes, or more than 33 hours of accumulated work. That's practically a worker's entire work week. And that doesn't even take into account other factors, such as potential worker injuries, sacks tearing, or improper stacking for later handling.
In contrast, a manual stacker allows the bags to be kept grouped on the pallet and the entire load to be moved by a single person with almost no effort.
MANUPACK offers manual stackers with capacities of 1.000, 1.500, and 2.000 kg , among other configurations. In our example, 100 kg of cement represents only 10% of the capacity of a 1.000 kg model.
Solutions to optimize time and money for businesses and freelancers
If we establish an estimated time of 1-2 minutes to pick up the pallet, move it 20 meters and leave it at its destination, the change is evident:
| Handwork | Manual stacker | |
|---|---|---|
| People | 2 | 1 |
| Time | 60 -70 minutes | 60 -70 minutes |
| accumulated work | 60 -70 minutes | 60 -70 minutes |
Taking as a reference a business cost of 25 euros per hour of work , the work done with the manual operation would have an approximate cost of between 8 and 12,50 euros , compared to about 0,42-0,83 euros using the stacker.
If we calculate the weekly cost, doing it manually over five days would cost around €40-€60, while using the stacker would cost €2-€4. The difference with the monthly calculation is more significant: the manual cost would jump to around €200, whereas with the stacker it would be around €10 . In other words, manual labor would be approximately 2000% more expensive than using this logistical solution.
More productivity and less manual handling
In addition to cost savings, it's important to consider the physical effort and occupational health of the workers. MANUPACK manual stackers are designed to move palletized loads using a hydraulic system , eliminating the need to handle each unit individually.
For a self-employed person, a small warehouse, a workshop, or a construction company, the usefulness may lie precisely in those everyday operations that are repeated over and over again.
Because when a 15-minute task becomes a one-minute task with hardly any effort, the savings are not just in the stopwatch: it's in all the times it is no longer necessary to employ two people to do it.
In logistics and maintenance, a few minutes may seem insignificant, but multiplied by two workers and 20 working days, they start to add up to hundreds of euros.
The economic and time calculations included in this article are estimates based on a simulated scenario and were developed with the support of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Additionally, some of the images used have been modified using AI for illustrative purposes only.
