FAST’s Focus on Ergonomics and Safety

Looking to provide a cargo handling solution that reduces fuel consumption, improves total cost of ownership, offers commonality within an existing fleet and improves safety and ergonomics, officials at FAST Global Solutions began developing the M-Series Cargo Dolly in 2018 and paired the dolly with its proprietary EasyLift Towbar.

“The M-Series dolly's development began in 2018 with prototyping, testing, modeling and FEA, a true ground-up engineering development. Currently, the M-Series is at the pilot stage with full production launching this year and orders starting to line up,” says Tim Hildebrandt, vice president of sales at FAST Global Solutions.

According to Hildebrandt, the M-Series Dolly incorporates ergonomics, safety and the ability to integrate with existing fleet equipment. What’s more, the EasyLift Towbar System allows increased control during tow-bar motion and lowers the forces required to raise the tow-bar. The EasyLift Towbar improves the ergonomics for ramp operations teams when attaching or disconnecting units, providing a 60 percent reduction in lifting forces compared to standard tow-bars.

“By integrating the collective needs into our engineering process, the result is a dolly with commonality to marry into existing fleets of equipment and to accept parts and enhancements within the inventory the customer purchases,” Hildebrandt says.

Hildebrandt notes FAST plans to continue engineering variations of this platform, innovating alongside its customers’ end-users for functionality that meets safety requirements and efficiency demands.

Currently the M-Series is produced in the United States, with plans for the company’s European production facility to fulfill demand from its international customers.

“Feedback has been positive, even more so when paired with the EasyLift Towbar and for all the previously mentioned advantages,” Hildebrandt says.