How To Send Large Items By Courier? A guide for medical logistics

1. Size, weight and staffing – this is often the greatest challenge as there is a limit to the size of any item one individual can carry. Here at Distribusha, that is not a problem as we don’t operate a ‘one man and his van’ system and instead we can provide a team of up to three couriers for any delivery. While you may think that we have made an obvious mistake here we haven’t. Yes, we know that where we collect a large item from, there may be two people there to help with getting it into the van, but what about at the other end? We prefer not to take risks and not only what we deliver, but how we deliver it very much is a reflection on the company we are delivering the item for. We want to convey the impression of a well organized and professional delivery service in order to appropriately represent our clients. To be honest, what sort of an impression would it make if we turned up with a large item for delivery with one courier, asking if there were a couple of people available to ‘give us a hand’? Beyond this, we have the question of weight. While there is no legal maximum weight any individual is allowed to lift on their own, it is generally accepted that 25kg is sufficient for men and 16kg for women. More to the point, we care about our couriers and the last thing we would want is for them to be laid off work for several weeks with a bad back! Consequently, we can provide up to three couriers for particularly heavy items, and they will also come with a pallet truck (not a forklift truck) if the item has already been loaded onto a pallet (we would normally ask for this for particularly heavy items). 

2. Size, weight and vehicles – a Ford Transit van or similar-size vehicle is capable of carrying only a certain maximum size of item, owing to a maximum capacity of roughly ten cubic metres. Here at Distribusha we have vehicles with a capacity of up to 18 cubic metres. Of course, with some large items, there also comes the challenge of increased weight and while, as mentioned above, we can provide the additional couriers needed, you also need to have a fit-for-purpose vehicle. Where there is a large and heavy load, we would dispatch couriers with a vehicle which had a hydraulic tail lift as it is by far the safest type of vehicle under the circumstances.