As the push for sustainable business practices continues to grow stronger, more and more warehouses are adopting “green” initiatives. Toyota has been practicing sustainable business practices, led by the guiding rules of the Toyota Production System, and continues to improve our impact on the environment. Practices such as Just-In-Time and Jidoka have helped Toyota Forklifts’ manufacturing site achieve a zero-landfill facility status.

With benefits ranging from positive environmental impacts to substantial cost savings, making changes in your facility is worth your while. Here are a few of the ways you can bring green warehousing practices to your own facility:

Sustainable Warehouse Management: Recycle

Recycling, by definition, means reusing material. This might mean converting waste into material that is usable or finding a new purpose so they can be used again. However, when it comes to manufacturing, recycling is about more than just throwing plastic cups and used paper into their respectively labeled bins. It is about making recycling initiatives part of the core of your manufacturing process.

Start off small. Send your used packaging material to a recycling center. Take metal shavings from the welding department and recycle them as scrap metal. Dispose of batteries and chemicals in ways that are environmentally sound, including working with a battery recycler to dispose of worn forklift batteries.

Sustainable Warehouse Equipment: Use Green-Manufactured Products

The efficiency and reliability of your equipment has a tremendous impact on your warehouse processes. Choosing electric products can increase your uptime due to their lower maintenance requirements. They also cut fuel exhausts – and fuel costs! Toyota offers a full line of electric products – everything from pallet jacks to THDs – to keep your facility running smoothly.

Aside from forklifts, you can also opt for eco-friendly conveyor systems that cut energy use and maintenance while maintaining a productive workflow.

Sustainable Warehouse Sensibility: Check Your Lighting

Do the lights always need to be on in every part of your facility? Probably not. Install an energy management system that knows which lights need to be on, and when. Additionally, swap out those old bulbs for energy-efficient LED fixtures to boost energy efficiency and save on electricity costs.

There are many ways to bring sustainable practices to your facility. Monitor your efforts and find ways to continuously improve. The gradual implementation of a variety of these techniques over time can transform your facility into green warehouse.

Original Post: Anastasia Sistevaris, Communications Copywriter, Toyota Material Handling, USA

The use of LP, CNG, gasoline, and diesel forklifts can provide an increase in efficiency and higher ROI for many different types of operations. Whether moving material between manufacturing steps or increasing throughput in a warehouse, Toyota offers a wide variety of pneumatic tire and cushion tire gas-powered forklifts to fit your needs.

Facility design is one of the most important factors in protecting against the harms of exhaust, but a few key ventilation precautions can greatly reduce the risks from emissions.

But as with any piece of heavy machinery or equipment, proper precautions have to be taken to ensure people are protected from residual impacts of their use. In the case of LP, CNG, gasoline, and diesel forklifts, exhaust fumes can be harmful to employees and products if proper precautions aren’t taken. Facility design is one of the most important factors in protecting against the harms of exhaust, but a few key ventilation precautions can greatly reduce the risks from emissions. Here are a few reminders that you can use in your own facilities or bring to your supervisor’s attention.

Warehouses Need Proper Ventilation, Too

In fact, OSHA reported that most complaints of symptoms like dizziness and headache related to LPG forklift use came from warehouses. Performing a proper audit of your warehousing air flow can help to alleviate the possibility of harm from fumes to both people and products. If you run or work in a facility that requires both manufacturing and warehouse storage operation, then it’s important to remember to ventilate both areas.

Forklifts in Enclosed Areas can Lead to Ventilation Problems

Many operators have to use forklifts in very tight areas, sometimes for long periods of time. Long exposure to fumes from an LP, gasoline, CNG, or diesel forklift can lead to the possibility of health hazards. When working in spaces like semi-trailers, within the confines of materials that can’t pass air (think cotton bails), or small rooms for storing specialty products, taking breaks is required. Understanding how to offer proper air flow to these areas by opening windows and vents and providing fans can help limit risks. And according to OSHA standard 29 CFR 1912.12(a)(2), operating forklifts onboard a ship requires special precautions to ensure the right levels of oxygen are present in tight spaces.

Weather Can Impact your Ventilation

When things get cold outside, we tend to want to keep heat in. But when you close your windows, doors, or vents, you also have to account for the fumes that might fill your forklift-operating areas. Make sure staying warm doesn’t come at the expense of fume exposure.

Peak seasons are an exciting time for any business. These busy seasons can mean increased orders, fulfillment requests, and, best of all, revenue. But peak seasons can also be stressful times that lead to warehouse inefficiencies and cause lost opportunities. Lead time can get extended and damage your reputation if you haven’t planned effectively for a higher than normal volume. Here are three useful questions to ask as you prepare for your upcoming peak season:

Do I have the right equipment for increased velocity?

Sometimes the right warehouse equipment is a full sit-down forklift (like a 3-wheel electric) that can move large pallets of numerous individual products to high velocity picking areas. For other warehouses in peak seasons, versatile hand pallet or electric walkie pallet jacks that can quickly cover short distances with limited touches are the answer. But as you come into your peak season, take an inventory and make sure you have the right material handling equipment to get the job done.

Do I need to reorganize my warehouse during peak seasons?

Perhaps it makes sense to keep pallets of high velocity, peak season products on pallets near the shipping area. Or maybe high velocity products need to be placed on lower racking levels for easier access by forklift operators and order picking personnel. Your distribution and supply chain needs will dictate what you need, but it’s worth asking if you can reorganize to be more efficient during peak seasons.

Can I increase efficiency by cross docking?

The goal of any productive warehouse is to eliminate touches on each product. If you can decrease the number of times a product needs to be moved, then you can shorten your lead time for customer delivery. During high-demand periods, you might consider whether you have an opportunity for cross docking, or the process of receiving a product and then shipping it to its next location without ever moving it to short or long term storage in a warehouse. If peak seasons demand quick delivery of products, it might be best to grab a hand pallet or electric walkie pallet jack and immediately put that received product on the next truck for shipping.

Original Post: Jake Stewart, Digital Copywriter, Toyota Material Handling, USA

What is a Site Survey?

A site survey is when a trained warehouse consultant visits a work space to help maximize the business’ work place through racking, equipment, and a multitude of other factors. Their job is to help a business work as efficiently as possible and utilize all the space a company owns. But why should you think about getting one? Below are a few reasons.

Warehouse Operation Efficiency

Once a warehouse consultant comes on the scene at the time and date arranged specifically for the site survey, it doesn’t take long for them to identify opportunities that can carry already profitable business even further.

For example, let’s say a company is using reach trucks to grab pallets, bring the pallets down, remove the product, and then put the pallet back up onto the racking unit. In this case, an order picker may be a more optimal equipment choice to get the job done.

Often times, companies have already thought of this, but their response as to why they haven’t done it yet is usually: “We’ve always done it this way.” Those words echo through warehouses and distribution centers nationwide, and often deter operations managers from making the moves they must make in order to meet the changing demands of the modern-day distribution environment.

For those companies that do embrace change, a site survey typically starts by inventorying all forklifts and determining how that equipment is being used in the facility.

Warehouse Storage

On the warehouse floor, a site survey can help detect storage problems (e.g., stacks of pallets that are pushed into corners using hand pallet jacks), inventory management issues, and poor use of vertical space. There are times when managers say they don’t have enough space, but only have product stacked 12 feet high in a building with 25 foot ceilings. This is an opportunity for the warehouse to grow up, instead of out. The site survey will also help determine the best equipment for this type of application, such as order pickers, reach truck, or a combination of both.

All of these steps culminate into a complete warehouse optimization package designed to help operations achieve and exceed their customer service, safety, and profitability goals. By getting material handling professionals involved early in the process, these operations may be able to optimize their space and equipment in a way that they may not have been able to handle on their own.

If you would like to learn more about site surveys and warehouse consultations, download our free E-book, “Making the Case for Warehouse Consultants.”

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The cost of a forklift is always more than the dollar amount you pay for it. Service and maintenance … repairs … downtime to complete maintenance and repairs … replacement parts. It all adds up.

At Toyota, we get it. And we’re committed to being your complete material handling partner throughout the entire life of your ownership — that’s the Toyota 360 Support Promise that comes standard on every Toyota Forklift you buy and allows you to take advantage of:

Toyota Certified Technicians
Toyota Genuine Parts
Toyota’s industry-leading standard warranty program
The Toyota Mobile Service app

But even with all of that, many customers find that they want even more peace of mind — a way to reduce the risk of maintenance emergencies and lower the cost of potential repairs even further.

Enter Toyota 360 Support Plus: an upgrade option that provides you a year of planned maintenance and an extended product assurance guarantee with the Toyota Extra Care Warranty program. It also allows you to add on the extra option of T-Matics support.

Both are fantastic plans that provide the most comprehensive support in the industry. But maybe you’re wondering: Is upgrading to Toyota 360 Support Plus right for you?

To get a recommendation specific to your operation — taking into account all of the variables and considerations of your usage and application — we recommend contacting Dillon Toyota Lift. But here is a good general guideline.

Upgrading to Toyota 360 Support Plus May Be Right for You If …

You have a large fleet to manage with a lot of moving pieces to keep on task and productive.
You would have a productivity disaster on your hands if even one of your forklifts needed repairs unexpectedly — and you want to minimize every possible risk.
You want extended product support assurance.
You don’t mind spending a little more up front in order to save a lot of time and money later.
You use telematics on your forklifts and want the added option of support for that technology.
You prefer to have things done on your timetable as much as possible.
You’d rather be proactive in preventing unexpected downtime emergencies than reactive in dealing with them when they arise.

Original Post: Shannon Potelicki, Content & Communications Copywriter, Toyota Material Handling

Forklift operator safety training is pivotal for ensuring safe, efficient operations. Unfortunately, even the most effective and reliable forklift operators can still find themselves in situations that put them at risk of tipovers and injury.

To help prevent these inevitable situations, Toyota has equipped most of our forklifts since 1999 with the patented System of Active Stability (SAS.) SAS is an efficient and effective forklift system that takes over 3,000 readings per second to detect unsafe operating conditions. If a safety hazard is detected, the SAS activates one of its two main features that improve lateral and longitudinal stability of the forklift.

Active Control Rear Stabilizer System
The Active Control Rear Stabilizer System uses a patented swing lock cylinder to increase lateral stability by locking the rear steer axle. By locking this in place, the forklift’s stability footprint is converted from its usual triangle to a rectangular pattern, reducing risks of a lateral tipover.


Active Mast Function Control System
When sensing risks for a longitudinal tipover, the Active Mast Function Controller System triggers forward tilt control or rear-tilt speed control.


When activated, the forward tilt control detects the load weight and the extended mast height. It then reduces the reverse tilt speed of the mast by half of its unrestricted speed.


The rear tilt speed control similarly detects the mast height and load weight to decrease the mast’s tilt speed, reducing chances of a load spilling or a reverse tipover.Toyota’s SAS system is the first and only of its kind in the material handling industry. It has been accepted across the industry as one of the most important safety developments in material handling industry. That’s because Toyota SAS is key to protecting your most valuable assets – your operators.

Toyota SAS Protects Forklift Operators
Toyota engineers developed a dynamic forklift system for safety comprised of 10 sensors, 3 actuators, and a controller which protects the driver, load, and surrounding environment while facilitating efficient, productive material handling. System of Active Stability (SAS) works by continually monitoring the forklift’s operations and automatically taking protective action when needed.
This was all implemented on most Toyota forklifts in 1999 in order to protect operators in potentially hazardous situations. Here are some specific ways that that Toyota SAS forklift system help to protect operators.
The Active Mast Control and Swing-Lock Cylinder functionalities exist as protectants for expertly trained operators. They add an additional layer of security that can increase safety when paired with proper forklift operation.
Since transforming the safety triangle to a rectangle is not possible with a 3-wheel configuration, SAS takes a different approach to safeguarding stability of 3-wheel forklift models. Excessive speed when cornering is a leading risk factor for lateral tip-over accidents. The Speed Reduction When Cornering feature overrides manual controls by limiting the drive speed when cornering.
Some of the most potentially dangerous forklift uses occur when a load is being moved at height. The front angle control helps protect against forward tip over and losing goods off the forks, causing them to fall. The read tilt speed control reduces the risk of dropped loads occurring when loads could potentials slip over the mast.
Operator protection is our number one concern at Toyota, which is why we invest so heavily in safety features for our Toyota forklifts.

Toyota SAS Myths Debunked
The System of Active Stability (SAS), which is unique to Toyota and comes standard on most Toyota forklifts, has been created to assist in safety. And with all systems that are exclusive and top of the line, investors in such technologies legitimately ask whether it’s really necessary and consider all possible problems. But the fact is Toyota SAS offers only benefits to the safety of your operators. To offer peace of mind, we can help to debunk some myths about Toyota SAS.
Myth #1: SAS causes forklift operators to drive unsafely.
Truth: Any properly trained forklift operator is capable of operating a forklift safely. Properly trained forklift operators understand that even with SAS, it’s important to operate the forklift safely.
Myth #2: SAS must be inspected every 40 hours.
Truth: SAS actually only requires a 30-second check every 250 hours.
Myth #3: SAS causes excess downtime.
Truth: There are 200,000 forklifts with SAS today and according to studies, those units have 99.7 percent up-time.
Myth #4: There are 3,000 sensors in the SAS.
Truth: There are only 14 sensors in the SAS. Those 14 sensors automatically monitor the forklift 3,000 times per minute.
The benefit of Toyota SAS is just one reason why Toyota continues to be an industry leader in material handling safety. Need more reason to invest in Toyota SAS? There are clear financial benefits as well.
Toyota SAS Offers Positive Financial Implications
The benefits of Toyota SAS extends to the balance sheet, as the overall cost of a forklift accident far outweighs the upfront expenditure for a Toyota and the minimal cost of maintenance. How minimal is that maintenance cost? SAS requires little-to-no maintenance. In fact, of all the SAS systems on forklifts in the field, the average cost of maintenance per year is around $17.
Now, compare that to the cost of a tip over…
SAS helps prevent accidents from happening due to an unstable forklift. If it were able to prevent just one accident, it would pay for itself one-thousand times or more. That’s huge.
At $17 per year, SAS is the best (and probably most economical) decision you can make for your business. And since the forklift system is exclusive to Toyota, that’s just one more reason to make your material handling fleet a Toyota fleet.

Forklift certification, sometimes referred to as forklift licensing, is a requirement of any operator of forklifts in a given workplace. While it’s an employer’s responsibility to provide training, at Toyota we’ve found that operators are the ones that have the most at stake in forklift training programs. They are often the associates who ask the best questions when it comes to making sure they’re in compliance with OSHA forklift training standards. That’s why I wanted to take the time to provide three short reminders to operators and employers alike about training requirements.

Three Reminders about Forklift Certification

1. The OSHA Certification Standard for forklift training requires classroom and practical training.

There are two required parts to forklift training:

• Classroom training can be completed online, with educators in the classroom, through video, or a combination of any of these. The intention here is to give operators the knowledge they need about forklifts to successfully (and safely) operate them in a work environment.
• Practical training is required so that operators demonstrate their ability to operate a forklift before they are authorized to use them in the workplace.

2. You have to be trained on all equipment types that you operate and for specific applications.

OSHA requires that training be completed for all “types” of forklifts that an operator uses. For example, if you use a sit-down forklift and operate an order picker, you need to receive forklift certification training to operate both. Do you use a specialized attachment like a paper roll clamp? The use of that attachment needs to be integrated into your training. If you’re operating equipment you haven’t received training on, it’s worth a conversation with your supervisor to get certified ASAP. Training requirements can also vary depending on application (such as in a maritime or construction application).

3. You have to be recertified every three years.

It’s easy to fall out of compliance on this one, especially if you’re a seasoned operator who’s been using similar equipment for years. If your three year anniversary since training is approaching, make sure you let your supervisor know you need to be recertified.

Dillon Toyota Lift offers forklift training for their customer’s operators. No matter the forklift, we will make sure you’re in compliance with all your material handling equipment.