DC Velocity - October 2017

inbound

In 1967, Toyota sold its very first forklift in the United States, to a grape farmer in Fresno, Calif. Fifty years later, Toyota is the best-selling forklift in the country, with 800,000-plus forklift trucks sold in the U.S. to date— more than half a million of them manufactured on U.S. soil.

On Aug. 30, the company celebrated a half-century of serving the U.S. market at a golden anniversary ceremony at Toyota’s U.S. North American headquarters in Columbus, Ind. On hand for the event were representatives from Toyota Material Handling North America Inc. (TMHNA), subsidiaries Toyota Material Handling U.S.A. Inc. (TMHU) and Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Inc. (TIEM), and parent company Toyota Industries Corp. (TICO).

Toyota Forklifts’ history of continual growth was evident at the Columbus campus, which has seen 13 expansions, including manufacturing, storage, logistics, training, showroom, and office space, since it opened in 1990. More construction is on the way; Toyota earlier this year announced plans for a $17.5 million, 150,000-square-foot expansion that will bring the campus’s total space to 1.3 million square feet.

To mark the golden anniversary, Toyota associates custom-designed and built a gold-painted forklift. The unique lift truck was parked outside next to the first forklift sold in the U.S., which Toyota bought back from the farmer several years ago. (According to Toyota, it still runs.) Toyota also marked the anniversary by donating 50 camp scholarships to the Columbus Department of Parks and Recreation and by announcing a plan to plant 50 Japanese cherry trees on its campus and donate 50 more to the city of Columbus.

Toyota Forklifts marks 50 years of service in
the U.S.

Regulatory compliance of any kind is not something normally associated with humor. The ultra-se-rious subject of hazardous materials transport compliance is even less likely to bring a smile to anyone’s face (one wrong move and an entire truck trailer goes up in flames). Yet Labelmaster, a provider of training and information solutions for hazmat transport regulatory compliance, had some 300 compliance professionals in stitches at its 12th annual Dangerous Goods Symposium in September.

What had them all laughing was a video titled “Kids Say the DG’est Things,” in which a bemused Labelmaster representative que-ries children at a playground about hazmat transportation. The interviewer asks them questions like “What are dangerous goods?” (Answer: “I think they’re something good, but they’re like, dangerous”; gets pushback from a girl who insists that he call hazmat labels “stickers”; and trades rock references with a boy examining a “Poison” placard. The kids also weighed in on the challenges of following thousands of rules (“That’s insane!”) and what they’d call someone who protects people from dangerous situations (“hero,” “lifesaver,” “ awesome dude”). Watch it on You Tube or go to www.labelmaster.com.

Word on the
playground: Hazmat
pros are “awesome
dudes”

Thousands of containers and travelers flow through Florida’s Port Everglades every day, keeping officials at the state’s busiest container-port busy managing the logistics of international trade and cruise travel. But people and cargo aren’t the only things moving through the Fort Lauderdale-area port complex each day. The facility also handles large volumes of a less glamorous commodity—litter.

The trash is a natural consequence of running a bustling business center, but have no worry—port officials have a plan for handling this import too. Every year, Port Everglades hosts a community service event at which volunteers are invited to transform recycled petroleum drums into decorative trash and recycling bins.

The port held its seventh “Keep Port Everglades Shipshape” event in May, awarding prizes for the most creative drums. During this year’s paint party, artistically inclined participants created colorful cans bearing designs ranging from Mickey Mouse to alligators and sea turtles.