Forklift fleet upgrade contributes to 75% productivity boost

Urban Evolutions supplies reclaimed building materials, fixtures, and a line of furnishings and accessories for homes and businesses internationally and throughout the United States. Following exponential growth in recent years, customer deadlines placed a growing premium on the quick and efficient movement of reclaimed materials including timbers, fencing, barn siding and other heavy, awkward loads. After replacing an aging lift truck fleet, the company improved equipment uptime and productivity.

At its Wisconsin headquarters, the company uses lift trucks (Crown Equipment) capable of operating inside the facility as well as outdoors—even in 6 inches of snow. The equipment is in constant motion moving reclaimed materials from the outdoor storage yard to the production shop, and loading finished products out to customers. In addition to a hard cab to keep operators comfortable year-round, the lift trucks feature powered fork spreaders that helped reduce the average pallet loading and unloading time from 10 minutes to 2.5 minutes.

“Our load sizes are all over the place,” says Lee Morey, operations manager. “Being able to adjust the forks on the fly and not have to get off a unit has been huge. Our productivity in manufacturing has increased by 75%, which is one of the big reasons why we bought our second unit right away.”

Morey says the new forklifts have reduced overtime, but they have also lowered repair costs. The previous equipment often required expensive and untimely repairs, but the new trucks have required only routine maintenance.