Forklift Maintenance as an Investment Strategy
For most supply chain operations, warehouse effectiveness is directly tied to how productively their internal operations function. Accurate picks, timely order turnarounds, consistent order building, and streamlined interactions between handling steps all drive high operational efficiency, and in turn good overall business health. Warehouse Managers count on these metrics to improve (or at least remain consistent) over time, which takes increasing effort as systems age and equipment wears. Of all common warehouse assets, fork trucks tend to depreciate both in health and value the fastest, given the nature of their usage. As such, keeping forklifts in good repair serves as a hedge against declining health and unexpected failures, which presents the role of forklift maintenance as a business investment strategy towards ensuring reliable warehouse-wide productivity levels.
Maintaining forklifts can be seen as a prudent financial business investment delivering tangible benefits such as:
- Longer Asset Life – regular maintenance extends the lifespan of a warehouse’s forklifts. By keeping to the lift manufacturer’s recommended service schedule, owners ensure that the lift’s mechanical, hydraulic, electrical, safety, and operational systems all perform as intended for years to come.
- Reliable Productivity – forklifts tend to be measured by their uptime, as a forklift would be deemed unproductive the longer it sits out of operation due to breakdowns or system failures. Keeping a forklift in good repair makes sure it stays in use and serves its operational purpose.
- OpEx Cost Savings – warehouse operating expenses are in constant jeopardy across all fronts. Forklift outages, unexpected major maintenance, and breakdown-induced accidents are major threats to operating costs that can be avoided through proper forklift maintenance.
- Employee Benefits – every business is required to maintain a safe working environment for their staff, and beyond this, have an obligation to provide functional, unencumbered equipment for employees to use in discharging their duties. Well maintained forklifts help ensure a high, reliable level of safety, as well as instill a sense of pride and respect in employees reflecting the quality of the equipment they’re provided.
- Lower Total Cost of Ownership – maintained forklifts are less likely to suffer from unexpected failures, consume less energy and spare parts, and take less time to manage. In addition, maintained forklifts hold their asset values longer, offering higher resale potential when the time comes to replace the lift. Altogether, this results in a lower total cost of ownership for each lift.
Common Forklift Maintenance Practices in Supply Chain Operations
Forklift maintenance varies widely across forklift manufacturers, applications, industries, lift and engine types, and even individual employers. There is no singular complete guide to forklift maintenance that encompasses all of these variables, but in general, the following maintenance categories provide a good snapshot of the most common practices:
- Operational Check-Out – forklift operational checkouts are conducted daily to spot safety and functional issues before a lift is placed into service. Operators are tasked to check for things like hydraulic leaks, odd sounds, tire damage, warning lights, and smooth operation. Upon any sign of issues, the lift is to be immediately tagged out for service.
- Routine Maintenance – this maintenance practice follows a lift original equipment manufacturer’s (OEM) requirements, typically performing prescribed steps such as applying lubricants and inspecting major components after a certain number of operating hours have elapsed.
- Preventative Maintenance – in congress with routine maintenance, additional preventative maintenance tasks are performed that specifically serve to replace or repair points of expected wear before they fail such as engine belts, hoses, and filters.
- Major Service – infrequent, major services are often scheduled for extensive maintenance tasks such as engine rebuilds, transmission rebuilds, brake replacements, and safety upgrades.
- Incidental & Reactive Repairs – when accidents or failures occur, unexpected reactive repairs must be completed right away. While not ideal, it is always better to tag a lift out for addressing discovered deficiencies than to continue using the lift in the hope that the issue will not worsen and lead to even greater risks.
The closest resource to a set of universal forklift maintenance guidelines would be the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Forklift E-Tool, which includes legally-required checkout and maintenance expectations, found here.
Key Considerations towards Maximizing Forklift Lifespan
With the goal of maximizing the lifespan of a forklift through proper, intentional maintenance practices in mind, several key considerations should be weighed including:
- Maintenance Intervals – forklifts require maintenance at regular intervals that start with the forklift manufacturer’s specified requirements. These requirements should be augmented as needed to address additional needs stemming from the lift’s actual working environment and application. In all cases, the goal of regular maintenance is to keep a lift operating in a safe, reliable manner, as well as to Scatch problems before they occur.
- In-house vs Third-Party Maintenance Support – a warehouse’s in-house maintenance staff can react faster and with more familiarity to forklift issues, usually at a lower cost to the business. Alternatively, third-party service companies can also provide maintenance support, typically at higher levels of technical expertise (where OEM-direct training and certification are involved), though at a higher price. Owners must weigh the cost and responsiveness of in-house or third-party maintenance against their actual needs, so as to avoid any major gaps and delays in gaining support.
- OEM Requirements – here again, forklift OEM’s will have specific requirements that must be followed when maintaining their lifts to the letter. But also as with the interval topic above, the actual environment and application that a lift is used in will have influence on requirements, which may call for enhanced specifications on details such as lubricant types, tire repairs, safety device ratings, and so on. In all cases, owners must meet OEM requirements or seek factory authorization for any deviations in order to maintain their lift’s warranty.
- Best Practices – depending on the industry and application, a multitude of best practices may influence a lift’s maintenance requirements. For example, food-grade lubricants may be required for lifts handling food products so as to avoid potential contamination. Another common example is in cold storage businesses, where lifts receive additional maintenance to deter corrosion and temperature-driven wear and tear.
- Lift Ownership vs Rental – in short, the burden of maintaining a lift that a business owns falls entirely on that business, whereas a lift rented externally will be maintained by the rental company. There is value in both solutions, and each should be carefully considered for OpEx costs, duration of the lift’s use, response times, and technical responsibility over lift health.
- Focus on Safety – at the end of the day, nothing is more important than protecting employees’ safety, health, and wellbeing. Forklift maintenance must always be performed with safety as a core goal, not just because this is required by OSHA and labor law, but because it falls squarely within an employer’s expected standard of care for their staff.
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We hope that this discussion on material handling techniques and technologies proves useful to your manufacturing, construction, and distribution interests. Atlantic Forklift Services is your premiere material handling equipment resource, serving customers in the North and South Carolinas with professional equipment sales, rentals, service, repair, parts, training, and solution consulting.
As a award-winning dealership, Atlantic Forklift Services partners with world-class equipment manufacturers including Doosan (now Bobcat Material Handling).
To learn more, please contact us by phone at (866) 243-0991, by email at info@atlanticforkliftservices.com, or on the web at https://www.atlanticforkliftservices.com/.