Productivity has become the cornerstone requirement for warehouse and DC managers challenged by increasingly demanding metrics—including on-time delivery. It’s logical to think that a manager would first try to meet this need for flawless speed by purchasing a few new lift trucks. If the new trucks have a lot of bells and whistles that facilitate productivity then the whole fleet will be more productive, right?

Not so fast. According to the experts, selecting a specific lift truck is actually the second step in a warehouse manager’s quest to improve productivity. The first step is selecting the right dealer and manufacturer before examining the features and details of the individual trucks that they sell. Then, once that key decision is made, managers need to get their operators involved in the decision-making process. The logic is simple: If operators don’t feel comfortable with the lift truck, they will either be unable or unwilling to achieve maximum productivity.

Today, the answers to productivity improvement can be found in smarter lift truck purchasing and management. Here are a few steps that should help you put a charge in your operations.

According to the experts, the place to start a productivity improvement effort is at the local dealers. “One of the most important considerations is the dealer you pick,” emphasizes Jim Shephard, president of Shephard’s Industrial Training Systems, a materials handling operations assessment company. “For example, if you operate 24/7 or even 24/6, but your dealer is only open 8-5 Monday through Friday, you’re going to have problems if you need service evenings, nights, and weekends.” It’s quite simple, says Shephard: If you can’t operate, productivity levels will be zero.

David Morzella, warehouse products sales manager for Toyota Material Handling USA, agrees. “When considering productivity, you have to weigh parts and service availability and support by the dealer,” he says. “Being able to partner with the dealer and create a long-term relationship is important.”

Jerry von Dohlen, president of Newark Refrigerated Warehouse, is even more adamant about the importance of the right dealer in keeping his operation up and running. “In most cases, equipment from manufacturer to manufacturer is relatively comparable,” he points out. For freezer applications, the three major dealers his company considers are Yale, Crown, and Raymond.

Von Dohlen has found that the nature of the work determines the type of lift trucks he needs, so he tends to know in advance what he needs. “As such, I pick the dealer and the manufacturer first, and then I start looking at different equipment.”

1. In looking at dealers, the first thing von Dohlen wants to know is whether they will be able to provide appropriate product support, which includes parts and maintenance.

“The best truck in the world is useless if it’s not working,” he emphasizes. “I look for a competent dealer, one we have a relationship with, one that responds quickly, and one that will send competent mechanics at a reasonable cost.” According to von Dohlen, there are only two dealers in his region with whom he will do business. “I don’t think the others have the capability of providing adequate support,” von Dohlen explains.

2. Next, von Dohlen wants to make sure that the manufacturer the dealer represents will support the dealer and the product appropriately. “For example, when we worked with Yale, they had some problems with a model that was being used in our freezer environment for the first time,” he recalls. “As a company, though, they supported their equipment. They redesigned the 10 reach trucks I had, and while they were doing that, they gave me 10 replacement trucks as backup, so that, when one went down, I had a replacement to immediately put into operation.”

3. Once a reliable dealer and manufacturer have been identified, the next step is to utilize the expertise of the dealer to identify specific needs. “Some customers end up buying more trucks than they really need,” explains Toyota’s Morzella. “If they work with the dealer on a needs assessment, they may find that they don’t need as many trucks as they originally thought.”

John Colborn agrees. “Your local dealer can come in, learn what you want to accomplish, map out the facility, and determine the right number and mix of trucks,” states Colborn, marketing director for Raymond Corporation.

This concept is very familiar to Skip Russo, president of Barclay Brand Ferdon (BBF), the Yale Material Handling dealer that worked with Newark Refrigerated Warehouse on its needs. “The first thing we do is an application review, which looks at points of pickup and points of deposit, and everything in between, so we can determine which type of vehicle should be used,” says Russo.

There was a time when managers and other executives selected the lift trucks and operators showed up the next day to report for training on the new equipment. All of that has changed, and with good reason. Today, forward-looking companies make sure that operators are integral parts of the teams that review equipment and make the final selections.

“If you can get the buy-in from the operators, you will usually end up with more productivity and higher output,” says Toyota’s Morzella. “The reason is that, when they are more comfortable, they can work faster and maintain a higher level of productivity because they don’t become fatigued as easily.”

Productivity incentives are another reason for operator involvement. “These days, we see more and more selection decisions that involve operators,” notes Raymond’s Colborn. “Since some companies are offering productivity incentives to operators, they want to have a say in the type of trucks they operate, so they can be assured of maximum productivity.”

BBF’s Russo agrees. “The trend has been for selection to become a committee decision, which includes operators,” he says. “Operators look at ergonomics because they want to be as comfortable as possible. They’re also concerned about productivity and performance because some of them are in incentive programs.”

Newark Refrigerated Warehouse is one company very committed to operator involvement. “We absolutely get employees involved in the selection process,” emphasizes von Dohlen. “In fact, I don’t select the equipment. The supervisors and drivers do. We arrange for the supplier to send trial pieces of equipment, then let the supervisors and our best drivers operate them. This is how we make our final decisions.”

As von Dohlen notes, final selections are based on the results of actual demos, a trend that is becoming as common as operator involvement in selection. “More and more customers are asking manufacturers to bring in trucks for product demos,” states Raymond’s Colborn. “They want to see the equipment in operation, especially how the trucks interface with the operators.”

Geoff Sisko, senior vice president of Gross & Associates, a material handling and logistics consulting firm, also sees benefits in the trend. “We encourage all of our clients to ask dealers for demo trucks to use for a couple of weeks,” he states.

Recently, Sisko’s firm was working with a client that clearly wanted sit-down lift trucks. Even the operators themselves were leaning toward sit-downs, believing that stand-ups would be uncomfortable. However, Gross & Associates felt that stand-up lift trucks would actually provide more productivity and comfort for the operators. “We brought in a stand-up demo truck and let the operators use it,” says Sisko’s. “They ended up liking the stand-up truck better.”

When many people think about lift- truck productivity, they think about speed. After all, the faster a lift truck can move the more work it can accomplish, right? Maybe. Maybe not.

Matt Ranly, senior marketing product manager for Crown Equipment, has some food for thought on this topic. “Everyone is working to get the lift trucks to go faster,” he says. “However, after a certain point, more speed won’t do anything for you. In fact, after a certain speed, it just won’t be safe for operators to travel any faster.” What it really gets down to in terms of productivity, says Ranly, is helping the operators do their jobs faster, better, and safer—and lift- truck speed is only one element of this.

One way Crown is helping operators improve productivity is with the introduction of its FlexRide suspension system, which is on its new RC 5500 series, a stand-up counterbalance lift truck. “It’s a car-like suspension system with a completely isolated floorboard, so when operators are crossing dock plates, they aren’t subjected to the extreme shocks,” Ranly says.

Usually, adds Ranly, operators slow down dramatically at the dock plate, because they don’t want to experience the shock. “With the new system they don’t have to slow down much at all.”

According to Gross & Associates’ Sisko, if shippers are operating multiple lift trucks and shifts it usually makes more sense to purchase extra batteries—and then swap them out—rather than recharging the same battery over and over again on the same piece of equipment.

“Battery life is based on how many times you charge it,” Sisko explains. “If operators are throwing a charge on their battery during lunch and after their shifts, this is reducing battery life.” When swapping batteries, on the other hand, it costs more upfront to purchase the extra batteries. However, shippers are able to run the battery until it is almost depleted, replace it with a fresh battery, and then recharge the first one until it is time to use it again.

“In this way, you end up charging each battery much less frequently,” he says. According to Gross & Associates’ calculations, buying two batteries initially (for a swap-out program) will last as long as three batteries would if they were purchased one at a time and charged frequently. “The replacement battery program also improves productivity, because operators aren’t wasting time charging batteries during or between shifts,” adds Sisko. “In addition, you don’t run the risk of batteries running out of charges during shifts, which leads to truck downtime.”