Andel on Handling
An open forum for the readers and writers of Modern Materials Handling to share ideas, problems and solutions.
Carrot and stick incentives to buy lift trucks
All the major electric lift truck providers are talking about 80-volt these days. They see this technology as the key to helping them offer more powerful products that will, in some applications, replace internal combustion engine (ICE) trucks and result in cleaner work environments. You can look forward to a bunch of new product introductions in 2010.Is this news enough of an incentive to get you ...... Read More
Comments (0)Lift truck makers banking on fleet management
I’m doing research for an article on lift truck trends for next year, and most of the OEMs and dealers I’m interviewing are talking more about fleet management than iron and steel. Sure, there’ll be plenty of new features available on next year’s models, but if you can’t justify their purchase, what good are they? That’s why OEMs and their dealers h ...... Read More
Comments (0)Afford a lift truck for the price of a fire extinguisher
True or false: Safety doesn’t sell, especially when it comes to selling lift trucks. Safety is dangerous, especially when lift truck dealers try to sell it. Finished with my quiz? Now compare your answers to those of your colleagues who answered Modern’s recent Lift Truck Usage survey. In one section, lift truck buyers ranked safety at the top of the list of feature attributes they c ...... Read More
Comments (0)Dust off your path to lift truck safety
Looks like I kicked up some dust with my recent blog on OSHA’s warning about dusty work environments. I told you that OSHA was sending out notices warning work sites about lift trucks being operated in areas classified as hazardous. That includes places where dust is prevalent. “This situation creates a potential fire/explosion hazard,” the notice read. “This situ ...... Read More
Comments (4)Crown’s IC lift truck: farm-raised for endurance
Well, I can finally talk about it. A few weeks ago I attended a media-only introduction to the C-5, Crown Equipment Corporation’s first company-manufactured internal combustion (IC) forklift. It features an industrial engine that was jointly developed with John Deere Power Systems (John Deere). What do you think of when you think John Deere? Probably farm equipment. Maybe a combine? & ...... Read More
Comments (0)OSHA: tougher on lift truck violations
In my last blog I addressed under-ride, a particularly ugly and often fatal type of lift truck accident. I also told you that the House Education and Labor Committee would soon be delivering a full markup of the Protect America’s Workers Act of 2009 (S. 1580/H.R. 2067) to the Senate. This bill would attach criminal liability to employers whose failure to train lift truck operators resu ...... Read More
Comments (0)Lift trucks: Don’t be overcome by under-ride
The operator of a standup order picker was killed on the job recently. The circumstances weren’t unusual. OSHA arrived on the scene asking all the right questions. But there’s one question all lift truck operators and fleet managers need to ask themselves: Did this man die in vain? What happened to him could have happened to anyone. There’s even a name for thi ...... Read More
Comments (0)Forklifts from space! Tell your kids.
The worst insult you could pay a warehouse manager is that his facility is a black hole. That implies a huge cosmic point of no return. Well if logistics can borrow scientific terminology to imply chaos on a cosmic order, why shouldn’t science be free to use a logistics glossary to bring cosmic theories down to earth? It’s been done. Introducing Sunfall, a kind of outer-space ...... Read More
Comments (0)Healthcare: Put a dent in lift truck accident stats
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 47 million Americans, or 20 percent of the population under the age of 65, were without health insurance last year. That doesn’t have anything to do with lift trucks. This does: According to OSHA, approximately 95,000 employees are injured every year while operating powered industrial trucks. These two sets of statistics should move you&#x ...... Read More
Comments (0)Lift truck OEMs: Buying into what they have AND what they do.
While visiting Crown Equipment Corp.’s headquarters in New Bremen, OH, last week, I toured the company’s manufacturing sites. The fact that Crown is a vertically integrated manufacturer and makes roughly 85% of its trucks’ components is old news. But what surprised me was the number of major customers that also tour Crown’s facilities. It’s cool to see that lift ...... Read More
Comments (0)Lift trucks: What Crown's IC and IT strategies mean to you
In this exclusive interview, Senior Vice President Jim Moran explains what Crown’s entering the internal combustion engine lift truck market and its applying new information management capabilities will mean to customers.—Tom Andel Q: Before getting into Crown’s IC strategy, let’s address how the economy has affected Crown. Moran: As an industry ...... Read More
Comments (0)Lift trucks: help students learn to lift
There’s a lot of old fashioned thinking among old material handlers. For example, many lift truck makers and sellers have always seen hoists, cranes and overhead conveyors as competitive products. They bought into a huge case of “Either/Or.” A new generation of material handlers needs to avoid inheriting that mindset, and Scott Miller is working hard to intercept it. He ...... Read More
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