Material Handling Guru is here
-- Modern Materials Handling, 2/1/2003
Warehouses and distribution
centers bought 140,000 new lift trucks in 2002. But how do you know when it's
time to start replacing your fleet? Or how much insurance you need? Or whether
you can recoup your investment by selling each truck when its lease runs out?
Until now, only lift truck distributors and leasers could tap into that information. But a new product, Material Handling Guru, launched at ProMat will deliver the data to end-users for the first time.
The product is a joint initiative between Modern Materials Handling magazine and Crist Information and Research.
The Material Handling Guru (MH GURU) product provides end-users of lift trucks valuable decision-making information. The MH GURU assists users in researching, comparing and assessing the performance and valuation aspects of lift trucks.
The MH GURU provides:
- Specifications
- Resale Values
- Residual Value Calculator
- Fleet Manager
- RFI (request for information)
You may purchase an annual membership which provides your company unlimited access, or, you may purchase individual Model Reports utilizing a credit card online, and choose from over 2000 models from the database. Specifications are updated in real-time upon release to the public domain and the resale and fleet valuations are updated quarterly.
'This venture will deliver for the first time online
lift truck specification data, valuations, and residual values to end-users,'
said Matt Holdreith, publisher of Modern Materials Handling. 'That enables the end-user to do a better job selecting trucks per their specifications, understanding what that truck may be worth in the future, what a used lift truck is worth, and what their current trucks and fleet may be worth.'
MH Guru provides a side-by-side comparison
of the specifications and values of both your truck and its competitors, listing
up to 10 different options side by side, says Kyle Crist, president of
Crist Information and Research. The user can save that search online or print out the results immediately.
The site details about 50 specifications per lift truck, listing information like: fork carriage width, fork size, tilt angle, overall height raised, turning radius, travel speed, underclearance, brake type, engine manufacturer, and hydraulic pressure.
Another feature, the 'residual value calculator,' determines the future value of a new lift truck. The user supplies variables such as hours used, type of environment, and maintenance performed, and the site provides retail and wholesales values up to five years ahead.
A 'fleet valuator' feature lets users pick the lift trucks they already own, and calculate their value for insurance. Finally, each type of truck on the site will offer an interactive link to its manufacturer, so users can request more information.
All values are based on years of data on the lift truck market, drawn from OEMs, dealers, distributors, and leasers over the past 10 years, explains Crist. The specifications are supplied by the top 18 names in the field, including: Barrett, Big Joe, Cat, Clark, Crown, Daewoo, Drexel, Hyster, Kalmar AC, Komatsu, Linde, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Prime Mover, Schaeff, Tailift, Taylor, TCM, Toyota, and Yale.
And MH Guru
updates that database four times each year, based on lift truck sales in the past quarter. Users pay for data with an annual subscription, or by entering their credit cards to buy data 'by the slice.'
'This is the Kelley Blue Book of lift trucks,' Holdreith
said, referring to the famous list of automobile values. 'But Material Handling Guru goes way beyond
that, because the blue book doesn't have specifications like this does.'
View All Blogs
