When your forklifts are placed in a planned maintenance rotation, you’ll have a technician on site inspecting your forklifts to be sure they are in top working condition. That means a Toyota Certified Technician is regularly on site to answer any specific questions you might have about the functionality of your fleet while they work to ensure your forklifts are in top working condition.

When a service tech is on site, they will be inspecting several parts of your forklift for optimal working condition. This will include:

• Mast, lift chains, forks, hydraulics
• Running and braking system
• Control system
• IC engine or electric motor
• Vehicle body and safety components

If your technician is thorough, you should be able to visibly see them inspect these specific areas. To ensure top quality inspection is occurring, it might be useful to request a PM inspection form before your begin the engagement with your service provider. Then, when a technician in on site, you can request that you see the completed form. This will help to make sure you’re getting exactly what you paid for. All Toyota Dealers have these forms available.

What is the long-term value of planned forklift maintenance?

One of the most important long-term values of planned maintenance is that it will save you money. Avoiding repair costs and downtime because maintenance issues are caught early before they become problems is one main contributing factor. But there are others, as we illustrate here:

More important than these cost savings can be the long-term benefit of planned forklift maintenance on the safety and security of operators. Worn out components can lead to accidents, but a technician might be able to replace these components during planned maintenance before they become too worn to function.

Increased efficiency is also a benefit, both because your forklifts will see increased uptime because of frequent maintenance and because you can plan for downtime during regularly scheduled inspection.

Planned forklift maintenance can also have additional, unanticipated benefits. For example, interruption to your daily schedule caused by a forklift breaking down might be avoided with planned maintenance. Instead of your having to take the time to call around attempting to locate a service tech to get the forklift back up and running, a Toyota Certified Technician will be on site regularly to help prevent such problems from occurring. You also won’t have to wait for an available technician to maintenance your forklift.

How do I know I’ve chosen the right partner for planned forklift maintenance?

Planned maintenance sounds great in theory, right? But it’s only great in practice if you have a dedicated partner who is willing to go the extra mile for your business. As you would when you purchase material handling equipment, perform thorough research to make sure you’re getting the right partner. Ask your potential partner for referrals for other businesses they’ve currently worked with. Take the time to interview your potential partner and get to know some of their technicians. After the engagement has begun, ask to see PM completion rates on your fleet to make sure they are holding up their end of your agreement.

As part of the Toyota 360 Support promise, Toyota is dedicated to being the industry leader in customer support and aftermarket services. Our dealers are happy to provide any of the information you request and can come on site for discussions leading up to a planned maintenance agreement.

Equipment downtime is your operation’s worst enemy. Just like a car or house, a forklift requires maintenance and repairs after you purchase it. Taking a reactive approach to maintaining your forklifts can be accompanied by uncertainty and unexpected periods where forklifts are out of service. This can interrupt work flows that need to run smoothly for your business to succeed.

This is why many companies that use forklifts opt for a routine maintenance plan. The two most commonly used maintenance plans in the material handling business are planned maintenance agreements and full maintenance agreements (also referred to as guaranteed maintenance). Both plans are designed to maintain equipment uptime, be proactive on potential repairs before breakdown, and ultimately save you money in the long-run. But is the difference between a planned maintenance agreement and full maintenance agreement? We break that down right here for you.

Proactive with Planned Maintenance

Detailed inspections. Recommended repairs. Flexible billing. Tailor-made schedule. In my experience at a Toyota forklift dealership, these were expectations that come with a planned maintenance agreement. Many service providers have a detailed point inspection checklist the technician uses to inspect repair needs, potential safety risks, wearable items, and routine replacement parts. As technicians work through the checklist, he or she documents recommended repairs and provides service quotes to you for those repairs.  After going through the inspection process and performing any necessary repairs, many dealers will then bill you and schedule in the next appointment based on both hour usage and date cadence. While this process might be slightly different with dealers throughout the Toyota dealer network, maintaining uptime for your forklift is the value of any Planned Maintenance agreement. At Toyota, we believe in the value of planned maintenance so much that we include four PMs in the first year when you invest in Toyota 360 Support Plus. New forklift investment and proactive maintenance should go hand-in-hand.

Free Time with Full Maintenance

Signing up your forklift on a full maintenance agreement is like receiving the royal treatment. At the dealership I came from, you not only received everything included in the planned maintenance agreement, but you also had a plethora of other benefits, including:

• Maintenance records, tracking, and regular reports.
• Pre-paid scheduled and breakdown repairs with the exception of repairs due to misuse, abuse, and wearable items.
• Replacement rental equipment for the covered repairs, without charge.
• Flat monthly payment with the exception of repairs due to misuse, abuse, and wearable items.

With full maintenance, dealerships often take on the burden of overseeing the entire preventive health of your forklift. The true benefit is that the people who work with the equipment daily at the dealership now manage your forklift maintenance. When the dealership is able to work side-by-side with the customer, the dealership personnel is often in the best position to understand when to make repairs and replace parts before it affects your operation. This adds additional peace of mind when owning a forklift fleet. The monthly rate also helps you budget easier as the cost will not fluctuate from month-to-month. Ideally, you wouldn’t have to pay for every scheduled maintenance interval or the unexpected repairs that come with owning the forklift. Full maintenance monthly rates take into consideration a number of factors, such as equipment type, forklift utilization, age, service history, and the environment in which the forklift is operated.

Every service provider may differ in the way that they offer maintenance agreements. Planned maintenance and full maintenance agreements, in general, follow what I outlined above. Define your expectations and take a long, hard look at a proactive maintenance for your forklift fleet. It’s up to you to work with a dealer and tailor the maintenance agreement to meet your needs. 

Written by:  Kenny Trusnik, Marketing Systems & eCommerce Specialist, Toyota Material Handling, USA

If you’ve heard an anecdote beginning with, “Well, so-and-so said. . .” you are likely not alone. Part of our human nature means relying on our gut instincts and, while trusting your gut is something to be proud of, doing so isn’t always appropriate. Ensuring operational efficiency and the long-term value and ROI of capital equipment such as forklifts means having a good handle on how that equipment is being used within your operation. You may have a strong hunch about how equipment is being operated, but backing up that intuition with solid data is always the way to go! A vehicle management system (VMS) is a way to make sure you’re getting the right data to help you take firm, decisive action.

Trust me, I know how overwhelming data management can seem. And the data you’ll receive from a VMS like Toyota’s T-Matics Command or T-Matics Mobile can be overwhelming – unless you establish a few clear goals right from the beginning.

I’ve found that setting up a few key goals is a great place to get started with T-Matics or any VMS. For forklift operators and managers, vehicle uptime is often the “true north” that ensures a high efficiency and ROI. Adding T-Matics to the forklifts in your fleet can help your Toyota technicians have a clearer understanding of your needs and to ensure that you have maximum uptime in your organization.

Fault Code Notifications

Fault code notifications managed via T-Matics Mobile give instant insight into forklift malfunctions to help you understand the cause behind your forklift’s breakdown. When sensors are able to discover potential problems before the affected forklift is inspected by your technicians, they’ll be better prepared by having the correct parts in hand right when they arrive, increasing their efficiency. First-time fix rate is also increased as diagnostics are constantly running in order to provide technicians the insight they need to be successful.

Planned Maintenance Intervals

The problem with calendar-based planned maintenance is its failure to show the actual needs of a forklift because it relies on ambiguous and historical understanding of usage and need. With a VMS like T-Matics, planned maintenance can be scheduled based on activity rather than on a predetermined calendar date, meaning you’ll get maintenance right when you need it.

Utilization Monitoring

When you capture data effectively, you can turn it around into information that can be handed over, clearly and accurately, to your technician. By painting a detailed picture of your forklift utilization to your technician, they will be better at anticipating any upcoming compilations and at using this information to perform accurate diagnostics on current and potential breakdowns. The more your technician knows about a forklift’s utilization, the better equipped they are to deliver the best services.

Peak Usage Monitoring

T-Matics data offers insights into when your forklifts are being used most often. Use this knowledge for improving operational efficiencies, especially since it will allow you to distinguish between login and motion hours. These insights can also give you and your technician a good understanding of when they should be working on your forklift so they don’t interrupt your operation. Planned maintenance and fixes of problems not leading to breakdown can be performed during slower periods of your operation.

Written by:  Linley Kullman, Telematics Support Administrator, Toyota Material Handling, USA