VELOCITY VIDEO CASE HISTORY
Crunch time
YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN A SNACK ATTACK
States Logistics is a third-party logistics service provider
based in Buena Park, Calif. The company operates 11 buildings
in Southern California and Arizona, all equipped with Toyota
forklifts. The facility in San Bernardino, Calif., handles distribution
for a leading soft drink and snack food company. It reaches the entire
southern part of the Golden State
as well as parts of Washington and
Arizona.
States Logistics has worked with
the soft drink company (which chose
to remain anonymous for this article)
for the past 15 years and has occupied
the San Bernardino building since
2013. The company had previously
used several other buildings throughout the region, but that year chose
to consolidate distribution under one
480,000-square-foot roof.
Products consist of bottled and
canned soft drinks, as well as beverage syrups for restaurant and commercial use. In addition, the facility distributes juices, athletic drinks,
water, snack foods, breakfast bars, cereals, and other well-known
snack and food products.
Such a varied product mix means there’s a lot of variability in the
density of the loads the Toyota forklifts handle – which range from
cartons of relatively light potato chips and cereals to very heavy cases
of bottled water and soft drinks. The 33 vehicles in the Toyota fleet
are all 5,000-pound-capacity sit-down counterbalance trucks powered
with propane. The operation employs 60 forklift operators to man the
vehicles.
“Eventually, these trucks will be used 24 hours a day,” says Ryan
Donovan, vice president of operations and business development at
States Logistics. “We put a lot of hours on our forklifts, and we don’t
want them sitting around. We want them working.”
FLOWING FREELY
Some 40 truckloads of products enter or leave the building daily,
with nearly all of them loaded and unloaded with the Toyota forklifts.
Many of these products arrive floor-loaded in the trucks. To handle
them easily, many of the forklifts are equipped with Cascade Mark 55
slipsheet attachments. These allow the forklifts to easily pick up and
move the products without a pallet, though some heavier products
are handled using pallets.
The forklifts transport the loads
to storage areas spread throughout
the building. A monitored cool room
houses temperature-sensitive products, such as juices and breakfast
bars. Most of the soft drinks, cereals,
and snack foods are floor-stacked four
or five loads high, while many of the
heavier items go into pallet racks. The
three-stage masts of the Toyota forklifts enable them to easily reach the
height needed for efficient and safe
stacking and rack putaway.
The Toyota vehicles are also used to gather loads for orders. Full
loads are transported to staging areas near the docks. About 75
percent of items needed for orders are full-pallet quantities, while
the remaining 25 percent consist of mixed-SKU pallets selected as
individual cases.
Throughout the years, States Logistics has learned to depend on
Toyota for forklifts that are more than ready for the work at hand.
“We’ve worked with Toyota for 20 years. I think they build one of
the best-quality lift trucks. They are not going to break down, and they
require little maintenance,” says Donovan. “And our dealer is great to
work with, too. That is why we have worked with Toyota for 20 years.”
For more information on Toyota’s full-service product line of forklifts
and warehouse equipment, visit www.ToyotaForklift.com/Forklifts.
SPONSORED CONTENT
To see a video of the States Logistics facility in San Bernardino, Calif., that distributes
beverages and snack foods, go to dcvtv.com and click on the Velocity Video on Channel 2.
A fleet of 33 Toyota forklifts keeps snacks and soft drinks on the move in
Southern California.
A DC VELOCITY SPEED CHALLENGE
