Recent Posts
- On staying fruitful during this drought
- Warehouse expenses down, IT expenses up. Connection?
- Put a stopper in your brain drain
- Do seat belts put productivity and safety at odds?
- Wal-Mart wants suppliers to follow its carbon footprints
- Time to FACE forklift fatalities
- Forklifts don't have to kill
- Your company needs your help
- Your work force is your life force
- Time to face the What-Ifs
Recent Comments
- JND on Forklifts don't have to kill
- G-Man on Time to FACE forklift fatalities
- Manisha P. on Forklifts don't have to kill
- Bob Jasinski on Forklifts don't have to kill
- Craig on Forklifts don't have to kill
Most Commented On
- Forklifts don't have to kill (5)
- Maybe tomorrow's employees won't be zombies (4)
- Dead end or ladder up? (2)
- Get a charge out of this (2)
- Imprisoned in silos (2)
Archives
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- September 2007
Blog
Why this industry matters
February 14, 2008
My last few blog postings have been about lift trucks—training issues, new Chinese players in the U.S. market, heck, even lift truck rodeos. I can slip something about lift trucks into any conversation (my wife loves this). Some of the hottest topics on the global agenda are making news in the lift truck world. They involve our use of natural and human resources.
On the natural resources side, we’re seeing companies like Toyota Material Handling embrace the green philosophy and practicing what they preach about it. Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Inc (TIEM) of Columbus, Indiana, the U.S. manufacturing plant for Toyota forklifts, has received the state’s Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence for becoming a zero-landfill facility. It’s also part of the Indiana Partners for Pollution Prevention organization. Employees have planted 13,000 trees since the program’s inception. No hugging, just planting.
On the human resources side, we’re seeing lift truck OEMs like Rocla of Finland introducing products to help customers address the labor shortages in their regions. Its automated warehouse trucks (AWTs) are built from standard warehouse truck components and are presented as alternatives to AGVs. AWTs are used for moving pallets, paper reels and other loads between the warehouse and the plant or as a part of the production process. Rocla CEO Jussi Muikku told forkliftaction.com that the best labor shortage solutions use a combination of automation and traditional warehouse trucks.
As Modern’s been reporting, industrial truck manufacturers and their dealers – and the materials handling industry in general-- are addressing big-issue problems in unique ways. Even a company like Printronix—which many have come to associate with bar code printers—is now helping customers deal with wireless communications, international standards, and globalization. The materials handling industry keeps reinventing itself to avoid every industry’s worst enemy: irrelevance.
Posted by Tom Andel on February 14, 2008 | Comments (0)