Buffalo Forklift Blog — lift truck

As it should, safety superseded speed during the forklift rodeo portion of the Blue Mountain Occupational Safety and Health Conference this past June in Pendleton, OR. Winner Chris Evans, a forklift operator for Elgin Plywood in Elgin, OR, appreciated organizers’ efforts. “They reinforce safety by constantly telling you to look over both shoulders while not looking up, keeping your seat belt on, exiting the forklift with three points of contact and not driving with the lift up,” Evans said. Those are just a few best practices that can be used to foster forklift safety on the job. Safety+Health consulted safety...

Toyota Material Handling U.S.A. (TMHU), commemorated the 50th anniversary of the first Toyota forklift sold in the U.S. with a special event for dealers, associates, dignitaries and media at its U.S. forklift headquarters in Columbus, Ind. The company, which Modern has ranked the largest forklift seller in the world for 15 consecutive years, sold its first U.S. forklift to a grape farmer in Fresno, Calif., in 1967. Fifty years later, Toyota displayed that very forklift at its Columbus campus as a reminder to visitors of the brand’s longevity. To mark the golden anniversary, Toyota associates custom-designed, engineered and built a...

From their impact on productivity to their cost, poorly managed batteries can reduce the efficiency of a forklift fleet. The challenge is especially difficult in large multi-shift fleets, where state of charge, equalization and abuse require lots of effort to monitor. According to Jim Gaskell, director of global technology and business development at Crown Equipment, battery management solutions have improved, but the marketplace could benefit from diagnostic devices for lead-acid batteries. “An industrial battery is rated at 2,000 cycles, from full charge to discharge, but they rarely last that long.” says Gaskell. “The only time I ever believe a customer...

Focused on running efficiently while providing consistent services and improving the customer experience, facilities are increasingly turning to metrics, data and key performance indicators (KPIs) to help them achieve those goals. In the warehouse or DC, for example, data has become a focal point for any company that wants to become more accountable, make better decisions and keep tabs on its operations. An important part of any warehouse operation, forklift fleets—no matter how big or small—are more easily managed when data is involved. From impact data to fault codes to maintenance monitoring, data can help facilities track metrics and then...

The journey to reform fleet management practices looks different for everyone, but some common themes recur. Labor costs are a challenge for fleets of one to 1,000 and ensuring the optimal performance and behavior of those operators is an ongoing effort. The equipment is smarter across nearly all models, many of which come factory-ready to electronically export a wealth of usage data from onboard sensors. The appetite is there, the table is set, but how do fleet users decide what to order from the telematics menu? “Fleet management is still fairly new, and a lot of folks are not quite...