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Critical mass drives Toyota

Four years have passed since Toyota Material Handling Australia (TMHA) commenced the integration process of its Australian wholesale and retail forklift business units into a single entity.

After working out of 3 separate facilities in New South Wales, which included the National Headquarters in Caringbah and two retail facilities, coupled with the acquisition of the BT and Raymond forklift brands to its portfolio of products, it was inevitable that a move had to happen in order to accommodate such a rapid growth.

“Since 2003 Toyota Material Handling Australia (TMHA) and TMH NSW have achieved an increase in volume of business of approximately 250%,” says company president Steve Harper.

“The brand new state of the art facility at Moorebank NSW combines both TMHA’s National Headquarters and retail areas on one 34,000 square metre site”.

The new Moorebank headquarters was officially opened on 1 May 2007 by visiting President of Toyota Material Handling Group and Vice President for Toyota Industries Corporation, Mr Tatsuo Matsuura together with TMHA Chairman Terry Unnai, President Steve Harper and State Member for Menai, Alison Megarrity MP.

The opening was celebrated by management as the fulfilment of a significant phase of a long term corporate vision to continue a drive towards an increase in market share of the Australian materials handling equipment market, currently estimated to be 30 percent.

According to Steve Harper, the combined resources within NSW is now 2-3 times bigger and currently has the capability of handling an annual vehicle throughput of up to 3,000 units which includes, not only the 3 major forklift brands of Toyota, BT and Raymond, but also aircraft towing tractors and ‘Huski’ skid steer loaders for the construction industry.

After being completed in an extremely short lead-time of 6 months, this custom built headquarters provides every conceivable resource necessary to manage a significant amount of activity.

It is clearly evident that TMHA has all the tools it needs to set the highest customer service provision standards available in Australia

Facilities at the new building include a 5,000 square metre parts centre, designed to accommodate anticipated growth over the next 10 / 15 years.

There is also a 59 bay workshop area to maximise space and efficiency for safe working practices when conducting pre-delivery, service and repair work on new machines, as well as servicing a rental fleet of approximately 4,000 units for NSW customers.

The service workshop also carries out important preventative maintenance and repairs on equipment which cannot be done in the field by field service technicians.

The workshop area is currently completing an average 200 jobs per month and supporting a formidable team of field service technicians operating out of a fleet of 99 custom built service vehicles throughout NSW which has a current capacity to manage a work load of 76,000 service jobs per annum.

THMA is committed to holding stock of new equipment in every state and has a current stock holding at Moorebank reported to be valued at approximately $5 million.

The average value of the machines stocked is $18,000 which includes machines with book values of over $100, 000 each.

TMHA management places a special emphasis on staff training, particularly for service technicians and related technical staff.

For this purpose, TMHA holds on average of 2 training sessions per week in a classroom facility which can accommodate 100 students and incorporates the latest in audio/visual equipment.

For smaller sessions, the room can be adapted and reconfigured into 3 separate purpose fitted classrooms to manage up to 30 people each.

Additional training resources include an online E-Training facility which includes course curriculum material for technical training as well as all up to date technical manuals and product literature which can be accessed through an on-line portal by staff and dealers throughout Australia.

“Technological advances are increasing at a rapid rate and THMA has the largest selection of materials handling equipment in Australia,” Steve Harper says. “In order to ensure we have the most skilled technicians available, we invest heavily in staff training.”

“We look at the operational support as an evolving science with the objective of giving our customers a service support level through ongoing improvement activities that enables them to be confident in the fact that whatever brand of Toyota Material Handling equipment they use, we will ensure their machines are maintained to operate at the highest level of efficiency and safety.”

Further Information Toyota Material Handling Free Call 1800 425 438

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