The maker of Hyster and Yale lift trucks announced in December it would shut down a North Carolina factory and shrink a Scottish one. The move will let the company make just as many lift trucks using fewer factories at less cost, according to the company, NACCO Materials Handling Group. NACCO will distribute those factories' workloads to other sites and to independent suppliers. The move is not a reaction to decreased lift truck demand, but to increased plant productivity, says James Phillips, vice president of human resources. NACCO's "demand flow technology" lets its factories sequence jobs for better work flow, he said. The site in Lenoir, NC employs 310 people in making lift truck masts and cylinders. It will be phased out over the next 12-15 months. The 450-person site in Irvine, Scotland, will be shrunk over the next 36 months.