13th-annual Lift Truck Issue: Make the most of your fleet

Here at Peerless Media’s Supply Chain Group, we love our traditions. At Modern, one of our favorite traditions is using the August issue to celebrate the lift truck.

In fact, this marks the 13th year we’ve focused the majority of this issue on the latest technology and best practice developments revolving around the steadfast workhorse of the materials handling market—the pillar of nearly every warehouse and DC on the planet.

In this Lift Truck issue, we take a trip to Alaska to see how a beverage DC has applied software and add-ons to optimize its fleet; we offer a deep dive into the Top 20 lift truck suppliers; we roll out our annual reader survey on the state of lift truck use and investment; we learn how narrow aisle and very narrow aisle trucks are addressing storage density and safety needs; and we get an update on the evolution of autonomous lift truck fleets.

Due to their ubiquitous nature, it’s easy to take lift trucks for granted. However, if you want to know what it’s like to run a facility without a reliable fleet, just ask Mike McCartney director of operations for Alaska and Hawaii for Odom, a distributor of soft drinks, beer, wine and spirits in the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii.

As executive editor Bob Trebilcock reports, early in his career, McCartney worked in an Odom facility that relied only on pallet jacks and carts to get things done. Today, lift trucks are the backbone of Odom’s operations in Alaska.

“To get even greater throughput and productivity, McCartney worked with his lift truck distributor to bring in fleet management, labor management, voice- and light-directed pick-to-pallet and radio-controlled pallet shuttles,” says Trebilcock. “The facility is a reminder that despite the focus on automation, lift trucks are still the workhorses in most facilities—and McCartney and Odom now make the most of its fleet.”

And based on Modern’s Top 20 Lift Truck Suppliers list, Odom is not the only operation investing in its fleet to grow and optimize their operations. Senior editor Roberto Michel reports that the continued revenue growth of the Top 20 over 2022 speaks volumes to the innovation suppliers are now bringing to the market.

“The lift truck market grew quickly in 2021 as companies ordered more trucks to try to keep up with order commitments,” says Michel. “It turns out the pent-up demand wasn’t a one-year blip—it carried over into 2022. It’s worth noting that the suppliers on this list are offering some advanced technologies and automated and semi-automated features to help make operators and fleets more efficient and connected.”

Editor at large Gary Forger wraps up our issue with a look at the state of narrow aisle (NA) and very narrow aisle (VNA) trucks—a group he calls “the Swiss army knife of lift trucks”—and then implores readers to start paying more attention to autonomous lift trucks.

“Most readers probably haven’t given autonomous lift trucks a single thought over the past few years,” says Forger. “I believe we’re now at a point where there’s too much risk to avoid evaluation of autonomous lift trucks any longer. The stack of reasons to consider them just keeps getting taller and taller when compared to traditional operator-driven trucks—and once you read them you may start to change your thinking.”