Optimizing productivity and reducing operating costs? These two goals may seem contradictory but are exactly what company president David Weed charged his internal committee with when evaluating options for Robert Weed Plywood's lift truck fleet.
Robert Weed Plywood Corp is a major supplier of laminated wood products for a wide range of industries including recreational vehicles, furniture, cabinetry, and picture frame molding. Operating out of a 740,000 sq ft facility in Bristol, IN, the company moves up to 1,000 loads of material such as moldings and plywood between trucks and rail cars each day. With a "customer first" philosophy, the company has no tolerance for fleet downtime. So when the time came to replace its existing fleet of 40 lift trucks from an assortment of manufacturers, Weed needed a comprehensive solution that would improve both customer service and operational cost-management.
The local Toyota dealer, Bob Hull of Hull Lift Trucks in Elkhart, IN, accepted the challenge, and performed an extensive analysis of the company's operation and its current and anticipated future needs. The result was a 3-part recommendation:
- replace current fleet of 7,000 lb lift trucks with a mix of 8,000 and 5,000 lb capacity lift trucks to maximize space and load-handling efficiency;
- install onboard radio and computer systems to improve communication and inventory tracking; and
- replace the company's in-house maintenance facility with a Toyota maintenance agreement, allowing Hull Lift Trucks to manage and perform all maintenance, thereby making better use of the company's financial and labor resources.
Weed's team carefully reviewed several alternatives and chose Hull Lift Truck's analysis and recommendations as the most effective means of reaching the company's goals.
Each new Toyota lift truck is equipped with a two-way Nextel radio system with an onboard computer to keep operators in constant communication with the main office. This allows real-time responses to customer needs and immediate fulfillment of emergency, just-in-time orders. A bar-coding system for warehouse inventory that is read by the onboard computers helped Robert Weed Plywood update its operations with improved inventory tracking, further increasing productivity.
The most dramatic improvements, however, came in the area of maintenance. By contracting with Toyota for a comprehensive, onsite maintenance program, Robert Weed Plywood was able to eliminate its costly in-house maintenance facility. Under the Toyota maintenance program, parts inventory is no longer a burden in terms of space, cost, and delays, and the overall cost of fleet maintenance is now saving the company considerable resources in both dollars and labor. All Robert Weed Plywood maintenance employees have been reassigned to more productive positions that are directly involved in customer response.
Two key features that impressed David Weed and his team were Toyota's exclusive automatic fork-leveling capability, and its patented System of Active Stability (SAS). The unique fork-leveling function gives operators pushbutton control for safer, easier load handling, especially loads of varying sizes and weights at high lift heights. SAS is a system of sensors and components that actively monitor and control the lift truck's movements, providing stability and reducing the risk of tipovers, injuries, and load spillage.
"When we evaluated each potential supplier, it became very clear that Toyota was the ideal choice for our operation. The safety, dependability, and overall quality of these lift trucks is clearly superior, and the increased efficiency and long-term cost savings of the on-site maintenance program is exactly what we needed," said Weed. "These cost savings over time mean that we can avoid unnecessary price increases for our customers, and continue to provide the highest standard of customer service that made us a success."
