By Mitch Rice
The quickest wins in a warehouse rarely involve major capital spend. They live in the first few steps of a pick. Those opening seconds decide whether a shift feels light on its feet or permanently behind. In Dubai, where heat, seasonal peaks, and tight delivery slots add pressure, getting that opening right matters even more. When the path is clear and the layout does the thinking for you, a hand pallet trolley will frequently outpace a powered kit for short, fussy tasks. Not always, not everywhere, but surprisingly often in those first ten metres.
What the “first ten metres” actually includes
Think of a short corridor running from the aisle mouth to the first bay: floor markings, sightlines, the way returns are parked, where water sits in relation to footfall, and whether labels are legible without a second glance.
None of this looks glamorous in a drawing. Yet it’s where time leaks away. Tiny hesitations that become minutes by lunch.
In a Jebel Ali facility, a runner showed me how this plays out without making a fuss. He rolled in, made one clean stop, lifted a carton, scanned, and drifted back out. No shuffle-steps, no second look at the label, no detour around a parked cage. Meanwhile, a forklift idled further down, waiting for a gap to turn. The trolley won because it didn’t rely on the path; it designed it as it went along.
Match the tool to the first task, not the whole shift.
Forklifts are very important for your worksite; there’s no denying that. They move pallets, deal with height, and clear docks when inbound is heavy. And they can manage a lot of load too.
But the first ten metres of many picks in your warehouse are short, frequent, and presentation-sensitive: beauty, electronics, chilled top-ups, and last-minute e-commerce lines. For those, the speed advantage often comes from a light kit, short movements, and predictability.
Here’s a simple test: if the picker can approach, stop once, reach safely, and roll away without re-positioning, then you know that the trolley is the right call.
If that sequence requires a long swing, a second alignment, or waiting for someone else’s turn, you might’ve a case for powered movement where it isn’t needed, or you’ve allowed clutter to turn a simple job into complicated choreography.
Put products in “zones of reach”, not just velocity buckets
Velocity ranking is helpful, but it’s not the whole story. The place where an item sits relative to a human body matters just as much.
Treat the first two metres inside the aisle as “short reach” (below shoulder height, within one step). That’s where your tiny, high-touch, high-frequency picks should live.
Next comes “comfortable reach,” which is still fast, still low effort, but a half-step deeper. Save “assisted reach” for items that are picked less often or need a platform.
A trolley can only carry the load; the shelves have to keep it.
No matter which you choose, a trolley or a forklift, both are no good if your shelving is below par.
This is where heavy duty shelving pays back. Good shelving makes the difference between smooth movement and second-guessing. If your ground-level racks are sturdy, level, and free from loose fittings, people roll in confidently and work faster without even realising it.
When the storage feels solid, pickers stop hesitating, and that confidence is what keeps the whole rhythm of the aisle steady.
Lines, labels, and the wayfinding effect!
The first ten metres should read like a simple sentence. Thin, continuous floor lines that guide “in” and “out.” Labels should be at eye height where the turn begins, and repeated on the shelf edge where the hand pauses.
Nothing busy, and definitely nothing shiny. We all know that glare under bright lighting is a real distraction in warehouses. And redundant information is just overcrowding when the aisle is busy. You want everything readable and to-the-point!
At Dubai Investment Park, a supervisor spent a quiet hour moving three bay labels and sweeping a metre-wide arc where trolleys pivot. And guess what? Afternoon congestion eased the same day. Not because people worked harder, but because the same hard-working people could find their routes more easily.
Start well, finish well.
The first ten metres determine whether the rest of the pick is a glide or a scrabble. In Dubai’s pace and climate, the best result often comes from pairing tidy paths with light, reliable tools and reserving the heavy kit for the work it’s built to do.
Treat those opening steps as a design problem in their own right, and the unassuming trolley stops being a compromise and becomes your fastest yet calmest move.
So, start tomorrow! Clear the first metre inside each aisle. Put the most-picked items at a natural height. Give the trolley a marked pad. And just after a week, watch how much noise disappears from the shift lead’s radio. That’s your payback. It will be felt by your workers and your wallet.
Once the first ten metres are working well, you can focus on the whole unit, and maybe use the same logic to help your entire warehouse racking system.
Data and information are provided for informational purposes only, and are not intended for investment or other purposes.
