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Great news! Your company is growing, you’re expanding your warehouse, and you’re receiving more orders every day. But this means you’ll need to invest in more material handling equipment and finding the right products that fit your growing needs can be challenging. There are many different types of equipment to choose from, and having a clear understanding of your expanding business can help you choose the best forklift for your fleet. So, before you procure a new forklift, make sure you check out these helpful hints to make sure you are getting the right one!
The first step in any fleet expansion is matching your equipment to the changing needs of your warehouse. Do you need to stack higher? Expanding up is often an option, but you need the industrial equipment to match the task. Or is all of your product being moved along the ground? Maybe you need to increase your moving speed. These are vital questions when looking into the right forklift. Make sure you also take a look at your racking and consider what equipment can enter where needed, helping you in hard-to-reach places. Lastly, make sure you take a look at your aisle widths. Forklifts come in all different sizes and making sure it has enough room to operate is extremely important. Make sure you have a good understanding of calculating forklift aisle width minimums to optimize your warehouse space.
When expanding into new product lines or supporting production needs more than ever before, you must understand your new requirements to continue to ensure growth in all areas of your business. Making sure you have a forklift with enough capacity and features to handle your products is crucial. Toyota has forklifts of every size, from hand pallet jacks to loaded container handlers. Our Find a Forklift tool can help you determine the right forklift for your lifting capacity and load center.
Acquiring a forklift is a big commitment. As a manager, your team will be using this machine almost every day. As an operator, this is the tool that will hopefully allow you to do your job safely and with maximum efficiency. This is why you will need to make sure you look at all the options and accessories that come with the forklift. Toyota also offers different types of accessories that help with ergonomics, keeping operators healthy and less fatigued after a long day. This includes an optional rear assist grip with a horn button or EZ Control Joystick® so your team meet the new levels of demand without sacrificing comfort or productivity.
While there are other things you may need to look over, deciding on a forklift during times of expansion should not be an impulse buy. You need to make sure you scale up your forklift fleet in a way that makes sense for the scale of your specific business. Take your time and double-check that you are getting the forklift that will help your business grow.
Not sure where to start? Toyota’s network of authorized dealers can help you find the best solution for both fleet and warehouse expansion. Find your Toyota Full Solution Provider today.