VELOCITY VIDEO CASE HISTORY
Wholly scrap
IT TAKES MORE THAN QUALITY EQUIPMENT
to meet all of the expectations of today’s material
handling users. Cohen experiences this every day. This
family-owned firm has been in the scrap metal business
for 90 years. Cohen operates 18 locations in four states – Ohio,
Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee. Its yards take in 1. 25 million
tons of scrap metal annually that it sorts and sells to recyclers.
Moving that much material around its yards requires tall magnetic
cranes, skid steers, material handlers, and a fleet of 80 forklifts that
range in capacity from 3,500 to 50,000 pounds. Most
of those forklifts are 5,000- and 6,000-pound-ca-
pacity diesel-powered Core IC Pneumatic forklifts
designed for rugged outdoor work.
Cohen had a lot of experience with different forklift brands, as a variety of trucks came along with the
operations it acquired over the years. Also, a yard
would occasionally get a scrap forklift. “We often
would take that forklift, put a battery in it, and do
some repairs, and then we would have a forklift we
could use,” recalls Geoff Rosenberg, vice president of outside operations.
Some of these “recycled” trucks were Toyota forklifts. Cohen saw that
even with their age, they were strong, durable machines. But many of
the other lift trucks in the company’s fleet were not faring as well. “We
kept them all running, but the question was, ‘What was it costing us to
keep them running?’ We were spending in two or three years what it
would cost to buy another forklift. We wanted a reliable fleet.”
THE PATH TO PARTNERSHIP
Cohen felt that it took more than just buying a good truck to assure the
reliability it was seeking. It wanted a partnership.
“At first, we did not care about the color of the truck, so we weren’t
necessarily looking for an orange forklift,” says Rosenberg. “Instead,
we wanted a partnership — a dealer and a company that was just as
interested in what we were trying to accomplish as we were. And, we
were looking for a company that didn’t have the word ‘can’t’ in their
vocabulary.”
Cohen found that partnership with the local Toyota dealer, ProLift
Industrial Equipment. ProLift has eight offices in Ohio, Kentucky, and
Indiana, so its network aligns well with Cohen’s locations.
“Our customers are committed to partnering with us to solve situations within their organizations to drive down their owning and operating
cost,” says Mike Pospischil, sales manager at ProLift.
Besides selling Cohen its forklifts, ProLift trains Cohen’s forklift operators and in-house maintenance people to assure safe operation while
minimizing damage in the yards’ rough environment. Some vehicles, for
instance, are outfitted with stronger bottom plates to assure that any
debris the forklifts kick up while in the yards will do
minimal, if any, damage.
FEEDBACK ON PERFORMANCE
ProLift also provides a dedicated technician to
perform maintenance, particularly planned main-
tenance, on the forklifts in the Cohen fleet. The
technician tracks the performance and repairs con-
ducted on each vehicle to see if there is unusual
damage or wear that could be attributed to how the
vehicle is operated. Each quarter, Cohen and ProLift meet to evaluate
the performance of each truck, and whether it’s being used properly for
the intended tasks.
“We go by truck, by serial number, and show them what they spent in
that quarter for planned maintenance, for abuse, for just normal repairs,
and tires. Then we give them a cost per hour for the quarter and also life-to-date,” explains Randy Berryman, equipment sales specialist for ProLift.
As a result, Cohen now understands the total investment in its forklifts
and how a quality piece of equipment combined with superior service
can result in a very favorable total cost of ownership.
“What we found over the course of the last four years, and why we
have bought 52 Toyota forklifts in succession, is they’re tough, durable
machines that hold up under our environment,” Rosenberg says. “And
quite frankly, when you combine that with the service and our partnership expectations with ProLift, it’s been a great marriage.”
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 Toyota fleet in operation at Cohen,
go to dcvtv.com and click on the Velocity Video on Channel 2.
Cohen finds a forklift partner to assure materials are moved efficiently and
cost-effectively throughout its massive recycling yards.
A DC VELOCITY SPEED CHALLENGE
