Are your forklift operators costing you money?
We’ve already discussed at length the benefits of Guaranteed Maintenance where a single-level monthly payment covers all your scheduled maintenance and wear items (parts and labor.)
Guaranteed Maintenance
Guaranteed Maintenance gives you predictable forklift maintenance costs and helps you gain control over maintenance costs that can often fluctuate substantially over the life cycle of a forklift truck.
Guaranteed maintenance and even an aggressive preventive maintenance plan allows the customer to work closely with the forklift service provider to identify and correct potentially expensive repairs. It also serves to move the “locus of control” into the hands of mangers.
In our experience, many customers who only call for service when they have a breakdown and aren’t aggressively maintaining their machines, have wildly fluctuating (and often preventable) monthly maintenance costs.
At Accurate Lift, we are forklift service experts and we help customers use these powerful tools to get their costs under control and minimize unnecessary costs and downtime.
There is another factor that affects cost substantially in the long and short term, failing to get control of this can be extremely expensive. That factor would seem self-evident, but it often is not.
It could be your forklift operator.
IS YOUR FORKLIFT OPERATOR COSTING YOU MONEY?
For some reason, customers tend to view forklift trucks differently than rolling stock, automobiles and trucks. If the company leases or purchases a vehicle and an employee drives around jumping curbs, slamming the car into bridge abutments and backing into other cars, usually that employee has a short life as a driver. Likewise, if certain drivers routinely blow transmissions and engines, drives vehicles with low fluid levels and generally shortens the life of a vehicle, that specific employee would be fired.
Gaining Control
But for some reasons these things happen every day with forklifts and generally with no consequence to the operator. Gaining control over this critical factor can make a huge difference in monthly expenses and long-term costs. A bad operator will adversely affect productivity and even capital expenditures.
There are a lot of reasons for this and we can help you identify and solve those problems and help you get them under control. At Accurate Lift, we have vast experience working with operators and management to put the “locus of control” back where it belongs, with the customer.
DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM?
Here’s a quick list of question that might indicate if there may be a problem with you Operator.
1. Are you paying forklift operators minimum wage and not placing a premium on hiring experienced operators?
2. Are operators on each shift assigned to a particular truck and always the same truck?
3. Are all your operators fully trained and licensed per the OSHA regulation that requires all forklift operators to be trained and licensed?
4. Are your operators required to perform daily preventive maintenance checks prior to operating the truck?
5. Are your battery maintenance and charging procedures in place and strictly adhered to?
If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, you might want to consider giving Accurate Lift Truck a call and one of our service experts will evaluate your operation. We will work with you to get this huge problem under control.