Mother Daughter Carts Built for Lean, High-Throughput Operations

Mother daughter carts combine a tugger-ready frame with one or more removable daughter carts. The daughter units roll directly into workstations, staging zones, or picking areas, while the mother frame connects to your tugger cart system or tugger train system. The result is a material handling setup that cuts travel time, reduces transfers, and supports just in time delivery.

This system is used in environments that rely on precision movement of parts, kits, or goods. It helps reduce motion waste, manage times inventory, and streamline the production process.

What Makes Nutting’s Mother Daughter Cart System Different

Nutting builds every system to match real production and warehousing needs. Whether you’re feeding an assembly line, staging outbound orders, or transferring pallets between departments, our carts are engineered to handle the work without shortcuts.

Designed for Flexibility and Function

You can configure each mother daughter cart system to match your internal flow.

• Mother Frames: Choose between corral-style (for one-way access) and up-and-over frames (for access from both sides).
• Daughter Cart Options: Add shelves, cages, pallet decks, or small-parts bins—built to match your load profile.
• Capacity Choices: One, two, or three daughter carts per mother unit.
• Steering: Add quad-steer for better control in narrow aisles or long routes.
• Delivery Options: Rapid-ship or built-to-order, depending on lead time and configuration.

Every cart is built to support high-cycle operations and handle heavy loads without sacrificing mobility or reliability.

Why Operations Use Mother Daughter Carts

Companies that follow lean manufacturing or the Toyota Production System often turn to mother daughter carts to keep materials flowing while avoiding overstocking. The goal isn’t just to move faster, it’s to move smarter.

Key Advantages:

• Reduce wasteful movement and staging
• Limit excess inventory buildup
• Keep workflows aligned with just in time delivery
• Improve productivity without adding labor
• Lower forklift traffic and manual handling
• Improve access and visibility for quality control

By separating towing from staging, this system allows workers to stay focused on production tasks, not material handling.

Where Mother Daughter Cart Systems Perform Best

Assembly Lines

Pre-stage carts with parts or tools, then send them down the line on a mother frame. Daughters can be loaded or swapped without pausing the line. This supports continuous improvement and helps teams hit cycle-time targets.

Kitting

Daughter carts are ideal for delivering pre-assembled kits to specific stations. When kits change daily or shift by product line, the modular design makes it easy to adapt.

Warehousing

Move orders from picking zones to packing or loading areas using a single tugger route. Reduce the number of trips by moving multiple daughters at once.

Order Picking

Use daughter carts for batch picks. After each cart is filled, it loads onto a mother frame for transfer. This cuts walking time and improves picking flow.

Shipping and Receiving

Unload trailers directly onto daughter carts. Then transfer them into storage or production zones. The system helps ensure materials arrive quickly and in the correct order.

Manufacturing Transfers

Move pallets, bins, or components between departments. The flexibility of daughter carts makes it easy to stage, transfer, and return empties efficiently.

Built for Just In Time Delivery

Nutting’s carts are designed and manufactured in the U.S. using heavy-duty materials, precision welds, and high quality components. We don’t over-engineer or overload our frames. Every decision is based on how facilities actually work—what fits in your aisles, what can be safely towed, and what your team can support long-term.

Our carts are found in operations across manufacturing, distribution, and logistics. We work with teams that need equipment to support:

• High throughput and short takt times
• Safe and consistent handling of varied loads
• Rugged reliability under shift-based use
• Configurability as operations evolve

We also build systems to fit standard route trains or integrate with your current tugger cart system.

Improve Your Flow and Meet Demand

Mother daughter carts help teams move materials more consistently and with less waste. Whether you’re focused on throughput, uptime, or better use of space, this system gives you more control over how material flows through the floor.

It supports:

• Predictable delivery of goods to workstations
• Lower staging requirements
• Safer movement of materials between departments
• Tools to help you meet customer demand without overspending on inventory or labor

Request a Quote Today

Nutting builds carts that support your goals, not someone else’s catalog. Whether you’re planning a small route or a full facility change, we’ll help design the right mother daughter cart system for your needs.

Request a quote to get started. Let’s talk through your layout, load types, and daily cycles, then configure a system that works for the long haul.