Archive
COLUMBUS, Ind. (Nov. 2, 2015) – Toyota Forklift once again achieved the number one position as the world’s largest forklift brand in Modern Materials Handling’s Annual Top 20 Lift Truck Suppliers list. Toyota’s worldwide sales totaled $7.7 billion, more than $2 billion higher than the second worldwide brand of forklifts on the list.
To be eligible for Modern’s annual Top 20 lift truck suppliers ranking, companies must manufacture and sell lift trucks in at least one of the Industrial Truck Association’s seven truck classes. Rankings are based on worldwide revenue from powered industrial trucks during each company’s most recent fiscal year.
“We are committed to expanding our product line to provide customers with material handling products and services to fit their needs,” said President Jeff Rufener. “Our product innovation and dedication to customers, dealers and associates is why we remain the top forklift brand year after year.”
Toyota introduced several new products to its customers and dealers this year, including a new Reach Truck, a new 80-Volt Electric and a High-Capacity IC forklift. The recent product launch culminates months of product development, with eight new Toyota models and services introduced in the last two years.
About Toyota Industrial Equipment
Proudly manufactured in the United States, Toyota Industrial Equipment offers a full line of material handling solutions including forklifts, automated guided vehicles, fleet management services and tow tractors. Toyota’s commitment to quality, reliability and customer satisfaction, the hallmark of the Toyota Production System, extends throughout more than 220 locations in North America. For more information, visit www.ToyotaForklift.com.
About Peerless Media and Peerless Research Group
Peerless Media produces industry-leading publications and websites – Modern Materials Handling, Logistics Management, Supply Chain Management Review and Material Handling Product News – for the supply chain, logistics and materials handling markets. As a division of Peerless Media, Peerless Research Group specializes in marketing and media research solutions for materials handling, logistics and supply chain marketers.
Jan11
Toyota Forklifts & McCoy’s
Announcer: When moving heavy loads of building products all day long, it is crucial to have forklifts with the muscle to do the job right. That is why McCoy’s Building Supply chose Toyota industrial equipment to move materials at its more than 80 stores located in five southern states.
McCoy’s provides just about everything you would need for building or remodeling projects, including the lumber, block and insulation. One of McCoy’s largest operations is in Pharr, Texas, in the very most southern part of the state near the border with Mexico. It includes a retail store, open to both contractors and do-it-yourselfers.
Manny Gonzalez: On the retail side, you walk in here and you can find anything from plumbing, paint, caulking, electrical. We’ve got just about every category that you can cover to remodel the house, do any upgrades, fixer-uppers, anything that you need.
Announcer: A warehouse attached to the store provides additional stock, that is gathered for contractor pick-up or delivery. A large drive-through warehouse behind the retail store also provides fast loading of larger building materials.
Manny Gonzalez: What they like about the drive-through warehouse is there’s a lot of room in there, they can kind of pull in there. We can still get our forklifts up there and get their product loaded and they don’t even have to leave the truck. It’s real nice.
Announcer: McCoy’s own fleet of delivery trucks are loaded using 6,000-pound capacity Toyota forklifts. The flatbed trucks can be loaded easily from both sides. Like all of the forklifts used in Pharr, these Toyotas features safety glass so that workers can easily view where they are going, as well as see the products better when loading and in transit. The trucks also have many features that add to driver comfort when working all day in the Texas sun.
Ken Townsend: These units all have really ergonomic designed seats with seat belts. They do have the SAS features on all the units. They love the tilt-leveling, the ability to level the forks when they’re unloading. The Toyotas adapt very well to the McCoy’s applications.
Announcer: In addition to its contractor and retail business, the Pharr location also acts as a distribution point to serve other stores in southern Texas. Suppliers bring loads into Pharr. The products are unloaded with the Toyota forklifts, staged and consolidated before being loaded onto McCoy’s trucks for transport to the other stores.
This facility also sits adjacent to a railroad line and it has its own spur. Two rail cars have been dropped off onto the spur and are ready to be unloaded today. With its access to rail, McCoy’s is able to purchase larger volumes at better pricing. These car loads will be distributed among the area stores.
Toyota 10,000-pound and 8,000-pound forklifts with pneumatic tires do the heavy lifting here. They move the loads to staging areas until they are ready for use in Pharr or delivery to the other retail outlets.
These forklifts are just a handful of the more than 250 Toyota units that McCoy’s has used for doing the heavy lifting in its facilities since 2007. There are a few important reasons why McCoy’s has chosen Toyota as its forklift supplier.
Manny Gonzalez: I’ll tell you, being here 25 years, we’ve seen a lot of equipment come and go. As our company has grown, we’ve kind of learned our business more and more throughout the years, Toyota has been a good fit for us. I can speak for this location specifically, with all the expansion that we’ve had and increased activity, the units are great. They’re real user-friendly.
Announcer: Having one brand and one dealer to work with was also part of the strategic decision in choosing Toyota.
Ken Townsend: We want one point of contact. If I can have one point of contact for 88 locations, that’s awesome. Toyota did a great job stepping up to the plate. We’re going to be about 95 percent Toyota forklifts in our facilities, so the important thing going forward is that we keep both people interested in our business and give us a sense of security that we’re paying a fair price for our product and we’re getting superior service. I just don’t think you could ask for more than that.
Jan11
Toyota Forklift & Opustone
Announcer: Few products are as heavy and awkward to handle as natural stone and tile. These massive stones are used for creating beautiful countertops, flooring, and more. They are being stored here at Opustone in Miami, Florida.
Opustone is one of the largest distributors of natural stone products in the state, with operations in Jacksonville, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami. The company specializes in stone used in construction, remodeling, and landscaping. The granite, marble, and onyx slabs come to Miami in containers from quarries in Italy, Spain, Greece, Brazil, Turkey, as well as other parts of the world.
The task of unloading the slabs and moving them around the property is made easier with a fleet of 15 Toyota forklifts. These LPG powered trucks have the muscle to handle loads up to 5,000 pounds. Once in the yard, this truck is equipped with a special telescopic boom attachment and sling that allows the slabs to be moved around and loaded onto delivery trucks.
David Mansur: The slabs are big sheets of granite that goes from 600-1,200 pounds, so the Toyota forklift has been very helpful and have been helping us not only in maneuverability, but also on the safety of the operation as well.
Announcer: The Miami facility is the company’s hub and largest operation. It actually comprises four buildings, some of which are across a city street. Throughout the workday, the forklifts cross back and forth between the buildings with their heavy loads.
In addition to the large slabs, the facility also handles cut stone and tile. These arrive in crates, most of them from Europe and Asia. The forklifts unload the crates and take them to the various buildings where they are floor stacked as many as four crates high. This building also holds some of the tiles in storage racks.
Opustone has been using Toyota forklifts exclusively in all of its facilities for several years now.
David Mansur: We have been operating with different other brands before, other manufacturers. Since a few years, the Toyota equipment has been the ones that has been lasting longer. The versatility in terms of operation because as you see, we have a different, let’s say front of work. Our operation’s kind of complex, and I think that the Toyota has been suitable for this type of work.
Announcer: Part of that suitability is the fact that these Toyota forklifts are designed to be very maneuverable, which helps drivers easily negotiate the tight confines of the stacks of tiles. The see-through masts also enable drivers to monitor their loads, and the masts themselves have three stage, to lift loads high for safe stacking and retrieving.
Luis Penalo: Well this little equipment is ready to large containers. We go around the yard and with not even one pilot, with two pilot you can do anything with the forklift and the capacity of the forklifts are 4,500 pounds, which is able to go to across the street in the other warehouse and load trucks, any large container, like I said.
Announcer: A work cage is also used here. Lifted by the forklifts, the cage allows employees doing inventory to get closer to the products stacked high in the warehouse.
These durable fork trucks work both inside and outside of the buildings. While moving the heavy stone throughout the property, they encounter dust and take their share of abuse as they perform the needed work.
David Mansur: It’s almost like a cage fight. Right? We punish. There is a lot of punishment on the forklift. And as you can see, they react or they perform very well. But the most important is the technical support or technical assistance. In the moment that we need to, our warehouse supervisor or manager will call Toyota, and they will come. And they will either work on site, or they will send another forklift to replace the one that has to be sent to their shop to be fixed. So we operate in very good partnership, I would say, with Toyota local dealers or technical support.
Announcer: Moving these heavy products, loading delivery trucks, stacking and storing tile, these Toyota trucks are up to the rugged task. They offer the flexibility and maneuverability that Opustone needs to remain rock solid in its distribution.
Nov03
COLUMBUS, Ind. (Nov. 2, 2015) – Toyota Forklift earned the number one spot in a Peerless Research Group study for quality, value and lowest cost of ownership. The study was conducted to better understand the features considered most important when evaluating lift trucks for purchase. The Toyota brand was ranked highest on the list. The respondents were remarkably satisfied with Toyota’s quality, reliability, durability and value for the investment.
“Toyota forklifts offers quality construction, low downtime, high resale value and low cost of ownership,” said one survey respondent. Another mentioned “Toyota forklifts are so well designed. They listen to their customer’s desires. Everything on a Toyota forklift serves a purpose.”
Peerless Research Group surveyed more than 200 qualified respondents involved in the purchasing of material handling equipment. Respondents represented companies from a wide range of industries that rely on forklifts to keep their businesses running.
About Toyota Industrial Equipment
Proudly manufactured in the United States, Toyota Industrial Equipment offers a full line of material handling solutions including forklifts, automated guided vehicles, fleet management services and tow tractors. Toyota’s commitment to quality, reliability and customer satisfaction, the hallmark of the Toyota Production System, extends throughout more than 220 locations in North America. For more information, visitwww.ToyotaForklift.com.
About Peerless Media and Peerless Research Group
Peerless Media produces industry-leading publications and websites – Modern Materials Handling, Logistics Management, Supply Chain Management Review and Material Handling Product News – for the supply chain, logistics and materials handling markets. As a division of Peerless Media, Peerless Research Group specializes in marketing and media research solutions for materials handling, logistics and supply chain marketers.
Jul31
Toyota Forklifts & Falken Tire
Announcer: Tires can be difficult products to move and distribute. Of course, they’re round and heavy and all the same color making it hard to easily distinguish one tire from another. That is why Falken Tire goes to great lengths to streamline its distribution processes to assure employees this many tires accurately.
Ron Papcun: We sell a variety of different products. We have foreign tires, light truck products, high performance products. We sell to retail, large retailers, we sell to wholesale. Obviously with tires, they are a little bit challenging to handle because they all look alike or very, very similar but that type of skew complexity, it definitely creates challenges for you in the operation.
Announcer: The Falken distribution center in Robbinsville, New Jersey, handles about a thousand different tire skews. Toyota forklifts do all the heavy lifting here. Tires are held in these metal racks, each weighing about a ton when fully loaded. The forklifts easily move, lift and stack the racks as many as six high, saving valuable floor space.
Falken chose these forklifts for their versatility. These 5000 pound capacity trucks can lift two of the racks at a time with a total load weighing as much as 4500 pounds. These vehicles have four-stage masts, which allow them to reach 260 inches high, allowing two racks to stack on top of four others.
Jimmy Oxx: We want the fork trucks to be able to go any place that we need to position it. We’re stacking six high in this building, which is unlike almost anywhere in the United States. Recent changes to fire code allowed us to be able to increase the size of the stack here. The Toyota trucks were able to accommodate that and they have been very, very successful since we started doing that here. Inside the trucks you have varied heights. Containers are much smaller than traditional 53-foot trailers, so the fork trucks are able to transverse inside of those trailers as well, as well as the tight confines of the aisles that we travel in.
Announcer: The Toyota forklifts employed in Robbinsville can easily work in aisles as small as 132 inches wide, making them very maneuverable as they dodge around the 450,000 tires that might be here at any given time. The fleet of 13 trucks includes 10 electric powered vehicles and 3 propane forklifts, all with the same capacities and controls.
Ron Papcun: Well, similar to the way that we standardized the racking, we try to standardize the equipment inside the buildings. We don’t need to have multiple different types of equipment. It’s easier for the operators to learn how to use it. It’s easier for us to maintain it.
Announcer: In addition to lifting tire racks with forks, this propane truck is equipped with a clamp attachment that aids in moving larger tires. The clamp can squeeze and rotate the tires for much easier placement. To pick orders, workers select tires into empty racks. The forklifts drive the racks directly into trailers where the tires are removed from the racks and hand stacked for customer delivery.
Ron Papcun: We made the decision to use Toyota ’cause after looking at the other products on the market, we did some evaluations based on what fits our needs best, we brought some demos in, we had our operators work with the machines to see ergonomically, which ones they liked driving the best, which ones were the easiest, and after we did a full assessment on all the various types of equipment that were out there, based on what our needs were, the Toyota was in the best position to service our needs. We’ve been very happy with it.
Jimmy Oxx: We have been here for about a year, and I’ve gotta tell you, it’s really been a no-worry piece of equipment. From the purchase to the men being able to acclimate themselves to it, to the support staff that we have from Toyota, it’s been a very, very, very rewarding experience.
Lift Truck Supply, Inc.
3305 Robertson Road
Tyler, TX 75701
T: 800.873.1828
P: 903.533.9600
F: 903.533.9927
E: info@lifttrucksupplyinc.com
Jan21