Reduce. Reuse. RENEW. The Guide to Used ForkLifts

ReNewed

The Guide to Raymond Handling Solutions Used Forklifts

 

 

Forklifts or "trucks," as my industry likes to call them, are similar to cars in many ways. One most dear to me is the rental and used forklift sales. As you may or may not know, I worked for Enterprise for 2 years. I rented cars at the beginning of my role and became a remarketing account manager where I sold the retired rentals to dealerships to flourish their used car inventory. When I found out there was a similar division in this industry, I beamed a smile and thought, "Thank God. I actually know something about that."

 

Just like cars, we can rent our forklifts. And just like cars, you can buy used forklifts.

 

We take a lot of pride in our used lifts at Raymond Handling Solutions. We even coined the term "ReNewed." There is a whole team who manages the used side of things and every lift that is sold is handled with care.

 

Why would you want a ReNewed lift you ask? The same reason you would want a used car. They are less expensive, have a good life left on them and they depreciate much less than a new one will. Also, they don't have the 14 week lead time on them like our new lifts. Plus, if you don't like it, you can give it back. We don't have the same luxury in new ones. (This statement only applies to Raymond ReNewed lifts... I cannot speak on behalf of other forklift brands.)

 

 We like to recommend our ReNewed lifts when an operation only plans on using it for 2-5 hours a day. These hours are considered "dead man" hours. That is where the truck is actually moving and doing work, not just standing idol.

 

Unlike used cars or some other forklift companies, we put a whole bunch of resources into fixing, replacing, and repainting Raymond lifts to essentially "erase the hours" off of them. Note: A forklift's usage is gauged in hours instead of miles/feet.

Now, I know about 15 car dealers who are going to want to yell at me and tell me they recondition their cars to be like new. They are lying. They will slap on some paint, detail them and throw in a free air freshener, but they don't recondition them like we recondition our lifts.

 

We have four levels of reconditioning:

 

Premium: Our top of the line series. Truck reconditioned with the intent to bring all wearable components up to 80-90% life expectancy. Top quality paint job like brand new or better. Warranty 30 day full satisfaction guarantee with 90 day coverage on major components.

Performance: Our most popular series. Truck reconditioned with the intent to bring all wearable components up to 70-80% life expectancy. Quality paint job. Warranty 30 day full satisfaction guarantee with 60 day coverage on major components.

Value: The best bang for the buck. The truck is thoroughly inspected and all needed repairs are performed. There will be no leaks and the truck will be in safe operating condition. Warranty 30 day full satisfaction guarantee. Includes light sanding and paint touch up.

Rental Ready: This is a new level under our ReNewed program. The truck is thoroughly inspected and all needed repairs are performed. There will be no leaks and the truck will be in safe operating condition. Warranty 30 day full satisfaction guarantee. Paint is not included on this level.

(Words written from Randy: The Highest Reign of ReNewed)

 

Here is the reconditioning process of a Raymond Handling ReNewed Fork Lift: 

 

These lifts come from allllll  over. Some are from the rental department, some are ones that we have previously leased, some we buy from customers who want to upgrade their fleet.

 We typically sell them and then recondition them. Since our shop gets busy, we don't "Pre-Recondition" them. We recondition to order.

 

These are trucks sitting in the warehouse waiting to be picked to be reconditioned!

 

We then, depending on the level of reconditioning the customer requests, replace worn parts with new parts or fix/mend them, we mend or replace wheels and tires if they are worn, and prep the cosmetics to make the outside shine like it's going to the most important interview of its life.

 

 We do all in-house paint and repairs. This is the shop diligently working to get our ReNewed lifts prepped to send out to our customers.

 

Then, we line them up for one more inspection. They have their ReNewed stickers put on them so the customer knows what a great deal he got. They go through a long checklist of forklift lingo before they are released to their owners. What an exciting day for a forklift!





 

This is the Performance level of reconditioning. These three forklifts were manufactured in 2005. They are almost 10 years old and look brand new!





This was the first Renewed truck I sold to a customer. The customer had 1999 a damaged unit that was going to cost around $14,000 to repair. Instead of repairing it, I told him would could find him a Renewed truck that was approximately 5 years older, with a lot of new parts, for less than $14,000.

This was the solution we found for him:

 

 

 



Party on the Punch-Deck

Company: FujiFilm

Problem: The printers they were storing had legs that required a smooth surface on the rack

Solution: Punch-Deck

Lesson Learned: Make sure UPS ships all of your material BEFORE installation day. UPS forgot to bring all 4 pallets of punch deck so installation was stalled.


A few weeks ago, I did a project for FujiFilm. This was one of the first projects I got to handle from start to finish. Luckily, the guys at FujiFilm are an absolute joy to work with.

I worked with George, who pretty much had the layout of the racking drawn out for me. He wanted short uprights, about 8 feet tall, and 3-4 beams on each of the bays.

Quick Racking 101
-The green things are called uprights
-The orange things are called beams
-Each beam is considered a "beam level" not to be confused with regular levels. The picture below has 3 beam levels and 4 regular levels.
-A bay is the whole structure. There are usually a ton of them lined up in a row.
-The shading in the middle of the orange beams is what gets exciting. This was the solution we got to come up with...

So George had this all mapped out for me, but he came to me with one concern. The printers he was storing on these racks had legs that needed a flat surface. Typically we use wire decking for most projects, but it was not going to work for this one. George had wooden 2x4 that we could have laid across the beams, but that proposed a fire issue.

You see, in our business, we get the pleasure of working with the fire inspectors to be sure the warehouses are safe and that in case of a fire, the racks would be in the best possible position to not let the fire spread. This includes sprinklers, flu space and proper decking. We were concerned with the wood because in case of a fire, not only is there a lot of wood, but the sprinkler system would not be able to distribute water from the top to the bottom of the rack, thus creating a bigger hazard.

I contacted a company called DACS out of the east coast and worked with David Swanson. He provided me the option for punch-deck and punch-deck covers. The punch deck and covers allow for water to freely flow through from the top to the bottom. I am sure the fire department will be so happy when they see this. This is a product that is not commonly used, but it worked perfectly for what FujiFilm was needing it for. Enjoy!


This is the racking prior to the decking being put on. No forklift of scissor lift needed for installation since the uprights were short.

This is punch deck. Also known as B-Deck. 

This is punch-deck with a punch-deck cover on top of it. The cover, with the small holes, is what makes the flat surface, but still allows water to flow freely through.

To show the contrast, this is a side angle of the project. The punch-deck and the punch-deck cover are on the middle beam and the punch-deck is on the bottom.

*Permission was granted to post names and pictures of FujiFilm.

Getting Wired

The Guide to Wire Guidance

What is Wire Guidance?
 Wire guidance is a system that steers and controls VNA (Very Narrow Aisle) trucks down, well, very narrow aisles. Order pickers and Swing reaches are typically trucks that are used in a wire guidance set up. Essentially they put a wire in the ground and it syncs with the fork lift to keep it going in a straight line down the aisle.

This is a swing reach truck. It is an amazing multi-functional chunk of material handling love. Now, think about trying to steer it down a narrow aisle and work at the same time. Do you want to try it? Me neither.

Why Wire Guidance?
This idea never made sense to me until I was learning how to drive a fork lift and realized how hard it can be to steer one. Without wire guidance, the risk of getting hurt, damaging products, damaging racks, damaging lifts becomes much greater. Also, wire guidance makes a workers day much more effiecent. They can spend less time messing with the steering and more time movings products. This is a great time to say "Time is Money."

What are other options?
Rail guidance is another option that keeps truck in-line so that they don't hit the racks. They are similar to the bumbers in bowling that we used as kids.

Why would someone NOT get wire guidance?
First of all, it isn't required. And second, it costs money.

So why should I spend the money if I don't have to have it?
So usually when I see a warehouse without wire guidance, I can tell someone hasn't explained the benefit to the right decision maker. The wire guidance cost money. However, if my paycheck was directly affected by the safety and efficiency of my warehouse, I would rally to pay the up front cost. Fork lifts are expensive to fix. Workman's comp and insurance claims are never a joy to deal with. Damaged products set back the flow of the warehouse. And having to quickly steer a huge piece of machinery down a very narrow aisle while picking and putting away products without a guide, just doesn't seem like the best way to do things.


I did a project in Anaheim last week where we put wire guidance into a new facility. The racks were already up, but all the pallets were on the floor when we came to put the wire guidance in. I asked him why the products weren't in the racks and he replied, "It is going to take three times as long to put those up without wire guidance. Plus, I don't want anyone or anything getting hurt in the process. We will lose less money putting the warehouse on hold than we would if something bad happened." This guy knew what he was talking about.

Here is the line of chalk that the guys lay out so they can cut a straight line.

This is the machine that cuts the slab where the wire is going to go. Pretty neat!

Stuff You Need to Know to Become a Material Handling Specialist

As I previously mentioned in my introductory blog, there is a lot of STUFF a material handling specialist must know.

Side Note: I work for an awesome company who spends a lot of resources to send their salesmen to Sandler Sales Training. On my first day, they told me not to refer to my "products and services" as "products and services" on my sales calls.  They told me to call it "stuff" because it makes me more personable.  Works, huh?

Stuff you need to know:

What material handling is - Luckily, I discovered that yesterday and shared it with you. We are getting closer to becoming experts. 

What a forklift is - You don't need to know how to drive one, but you have to know what they are. This seems trivial, but the day I left Arkansas one of my co-workers wished me farewell by saying, "Good luck selling forklifts! The farmers are going to love you!" Face palm. Fork lifts are not tractors. They are machines with forks that move pallets in a warehouse. (Pallets, by the way, are the crates that go under the products...err, stuff… that are stored in a warehouse.) 

Racking- This party word can go on for days. Say the word "racking" in the Raymond corporate office and you will have ten type A personalities running up to you to bore you all about it. It is quite literally one of the most boring things to talk about to outsiders, but I personally think the best part about my job. Over the past 4 months I have learned ALL about uprights, beams, beam levels, wire deck, b-deck, base plates, anchors, seismic calcs, sprinklers, permits…ZZZzzzzzz. I know it's exhausting, but it is my job and I love it.

Even more about racking - I just started this blog though and I want to keep you as a follower so we can continue more on this exciting topic in later days.

Warehouse design - These people you are selling your stuff to want to pay you money to design their warehouse to make it efficient. If you do your job right, they will make even more money that they will want to give to you to buy more stuff. When we are experts, we set ourselves apart from the competition, build credibility, and look incredibly awesome.

Application of the forklifts - Not too sure what this applies to, but it sounds technical.

Dock and Door Equipment - This is a new department that Raymond Handling Solutions developed to make ourselves more of a one stop shop. Dock levelers, dock locks, shelters - These are all words you should know. You can go to Germantown, Wisconsin and learn a whole bunch about them. Not only the land of the cheese head, but where dock and door equipment was established. Quick fun fact for the ladies/fashion savvy men - The color "Kelley Green" actually came from dock equipment. 

What the market is doing - Luckily, I have a father and husband who are in the commercial real estate business so I can go ahead and check this one off my list of things to learn. What is important for new, and even old reps to understand is that your real estate brokers in your area are SO incredibly important to your business. Just think, there is a guy/girl who is SELLING the empty buildings that you so desperately want to fill with the stuff you sell. Why wouldn't you  make friends with some of those people? Duh.

How to pick up the phone - This is an important thing for all salesmen to know. It is a simple thing to do that believe it or not, sets you apart from other salesmen. It drives me absolutely insane that I call fellow salesmen for help and they don't answer the phone and then don't call me back. Flakey people in our business are going to have a really hard time hitting the big bucks. I work with a girl who absolutely kills it in our field. She will tell you she is not a natural salesman. But she answers her phone, follows up and stays organized and that has taken her far in sales. Learn something, sales people. Its not just your cunning smile and ability to make people love you. Answer your phone.

I really just scratched the surface on stuff a material handling specialist needs to know. Follow along people, like I said it takes forever to become an expert in this field. If you work for a great company like Raymond, you don't have to know anything going into the new position. They will train you to become dangerous in the field. We will get into MUCH more detail once I get my hands dirty, make mistakes, and learn new lessons in my material handling adventures.

Let's Get Acquainted, Shall We?

My name is Paige. I have a handsome husband, a chocolate lab and we live in a sweet apartment in Orange County, California. About 4 months ago we moved from the great state of Arkansas so I could pursue my longing ambition to sell forklifts and other material handling stuff. 

What is Material Handling you may ask? To that I say, "Great question. I am still not sure."
I looked the definition up Wikipedia told me that Material Handling is the field concerned with solving the pragmatic problems involving the movement, storage in a manufacturing plant or warehouse, control and protection of materials, goods and products throughout the processes of cleaning, preparation, manufacturing, distribution, consumption and disposal of all related materials, goods and their packaging.

To sum that up - Basically, I sell forklifts, create racking designs for warehouses and find solutions for any efficiency/safety/general problems a warehouse is faced with. And for the record... that is A LOT of stuff. 

Being in my twenties makes this job a little more challenging. Not because the others in my field are older/wiser/more experienced, no, that would never intimidate me. It's challenging because my excitement about getting the opportunity to rack a 100,000 sq. ft.  distribution warehouse doesn't quite give the same giddy feeling to my twenty-something friends during bottomless mimosa brunch. And that, my followers, is why I am starting this blog.

Please follow me while I share my new experiences as a material handling professional. There will be shares on successes, learning curves, new findings and the challenges this job will bring. 

I feel Madonna has said it best when she says, "We are living in a material world, and I am a material girl."






*Please note, I will ask for permission before posting company names and pictures.