When All-Clad Metalcrafters saw a change in demand for its high-end cookware products, it was time to rethink its current materials handling processes.

Previously, demand for its products had two peak periods—March to June and September to December. But then the peak period became year round. All-Clad needed to change the way it moved materials throughout its warehouse and production center in Canonsburg, Pa.

One of the weak areas was forklift fleet availability. "Forklifts were a constant maintenance problem," explains Bill Groll, vice president of technical services. "We'd buy used equipment and 'tape' them back together. It seemed something was always being held up because forklifts were down."

At that point, All-Clad called on a local dealer for a pair of reconditioned lift trucks.

Impressed by the dealer's service, the company decided to improve fleet management by replacing the costly and frequently maintained fleet with all new lift trucks. Along with the new equipment, All-Clad implemented a planned maintenance agreement.

"By doing this, we freed up several maintenance people who were constantly fixing forklifts," says Groll. "It's hard to hang a price tag on that, but we know we've saved a significant amount of money. The worst reason to have a production system run dry is because there's no forklift available to furnish it with material."

The new fleet includes five, 3,000-pound capacity counterbalanced trucks and seven with 5,000-pound counterbalanced capacities to handle the demands of the production side. All run on liquid propane gas. Electric reach trucks service the 120,000 square foot, very narrow aisle warehouse.

Groll says that improved fleet management has increased reliability as well as materials handling efficiency. As a result, forklift downtime has dropped to nearly zero, eliminating that cause of production delays. Groll credits the maintenance agreement as the main reason with instant parts availability and training support.

"With the new equipment increasing our capacity and a change to round-the-clock production, we'll continue to look for ways to improve efficiency and grow sales," says Jason Bowman, strategic projects manager.