DC Velocity - February 2019

The value of Toyota

TOYOTA FORKLIFTS HAVE BEEN RANKED THE TOP FORKLIFT BRAND in the United States every year since 2002. Toyota is Number One for a reason. It’s because Toyotas are built to be rugged, durable, and reliable, while offering a lower total cost of ownership. That kind of value is designed into every Toyota — from the original engineering blueprints all the way through to the ongoing service that the Toyota Dealer Network provides. It’s what keeps customers coming back to Toyota for all of their lift truck needs.

“We just were never satisfied with the
quality and durability of other brands, with
their capabilities and what we wanted to
accomplish in our business,” explains David
Cockerham, general manager at Keg One
O’Neal, a beverage distributor in Texas.
“So, we reached out to Toyota and bought
our first one in 2006. Today, we are at 110
pieces of Toyota equipment. We’ve made
a full conversion to Toyota handling equip-
ment for all of our warehouse functions.”
That’s a common reaction among Toyota
customers. Once they try a Toyota, they continue to choose Toyota for
all of their lifting needs.

A CONTINOUS DRIVE TO REMAIN NUMBER ONE During the past 60 years, more than 1 million Toyota forklifts have been placed into distribution centers, warehouses, and manufacturing facilities in more than 200 countries worldwide. Toyota forklifts have been available in North America since 1967. The company’s manufacturing facility in Columbus, Ind., has produced more than half a million vehicles alone, all with the quality that makes a Toyota a Toyota.

But it’s the people behind a Toyota that deliver its value. The Toyota Production System employed in manufacturing encourages teamwork and allows all associates to continuously improve the process and end product. It’s a system known as kaizen that results in superior quality. If ever a problem occurs in production, the line is stopped and the problem fixed before operations proceed. Forklifts will never leave the plant with known defects.

It is that attention to detail that assures that a Toyota will provide a long operating life with many years of productive value. Customers notice that quality.

“Our lifts are reliable and durable. We have a very high-speed, high-paced type of business, and we have to have reliable equipment, and the Toyotas have held up very well for us,” says Chris Whitley, director of distribution operations and logistics at Mt. Olive Pickle Company in Mt. Olive, N.C. “The safety features on the lifts as well as the mobility and the flexibility that Toyota provides make it a good fit for our business.”

THE TOYOTA DIFFERENCE Just as people are the key to the quality of Toyota’s manufacturing processes, Toyota’s vast Dealer Network assures that customers are close to Toyota service regardless of where they are in North America. That’s where Toyota 360 Support comes into play. 360 Support is a promise to customers that they can expect a high-quality experience at any of the network’s 65 dealers and over 220 locations.

These same dealers also provide leasing options and ongoing maintenance plans to guarantee that their clients’ Toyotas continue to run like Toyotas. All together, dealers offer more than 3,500 technicians and 2,600 service vans to assure superior vehicle uptime and high productivity. It’s their continuous focus on each customer’s business requirements that provides ongoing value for Toyota users.

“We’ve been using Toyota lifts for many years. We find them to be
very versatile and a quality piece of equipment,” says Ryan Donovan,
vice president of operations and business development at California-
based States Logistics. “They require very little maintenance and are
competitively priced. We are very satisfied with Toyota — both the
quality of the product and the quality of service from the local dealer-
ship. It makes it a no-brainer choice. We gotta use them.”
For more information on Toyota’s full-service product line of forklifts
and warehouse equipment, visit www.ToyotaForklift.com/forklifts.

To see a video on what customers are saying about the value of Toyota forklifts, go to dcvtv.com and click on the Performance Profile Video on Channel 2.