29 Jun Forklift Maintenance – A Complete Guide
Forklift maintenance is important to keep operations performing at maximum efficiency. When your operations are interrupted by unexpected equipment failures, systems stop functioning and your ROI decreases. Preventing situations like this is significantly reduced when you have a preventive maintenance plan in place and on-call service for emergencies.
Forklift maintenance is similar to taking care of your car – forklifts need oil changes and regular maintenance just like cars do. Having a schedule in place for your preventative maintenance keeps your operations functioning at their maximum efficiency.
Benefits of Preventative Forklift Maintenance
There are many reasons for having your forklift serviced regularly, including:
Increased Productivity
When you opt-in to have your fleet maintained regularly your uptime continues to increase because your fleet will continuously run. When you have this maintenance scheduled you also avoid production halts because you can schedule your maintenance around your operation schedule.
Longer Fleet Life
Just like any other machine, keeping your forklift(s) up to date on their maintenance needs will give them a longer life, saving you time and money of purchasing a new one.
Monetary Benefits
Even though preventative maintenance can seem expensive when your forklifts are functioning properly, purchasing a new forklift costs triple, not to mention the loss in return on investments when your operations are stopped or production decreases because of the loss.
Safety
The most important benefit is safety, businessess have a moral and legal obligation to ensure your operations are as safe as possible. When you’re not keeping up on maintenance, you jeopardize the safety of not only the person on the lift truck but everyone around them too.
Resale Benefit
Forklift maintenance keeps your fleet clean and in good health. If you plan to sell a truck or your whole fleet, having proof of a well-kept truck significantly increases the value and all your maintenance starts to pay for itself.
OSHA’S Mandated Maintenance Obligations
OSHA requirements can be tough to understand and challenging to accomplish if you’re not experienced with forklift servicing. Nonetheless, this maintenance is required. However, if you outsource your maintenance to an expert, OSHA’s mandates will be covered in your preventative maintenance plan, not to mention there are heavy fines for disregarding OSHA’s requirements.
“Industrial trucks shall be examined before being placed in service, and shall not be placed in service if the examination shows any condition adversely affecting the safety of the vehicle. Such examination shall be made at least daily. Where industrial trucks are used on a round-the-clock basis, they shall be examined after each shift. Defects, when found, shall be immediately reported and corrected.”
- OSHA STANDARD 1910.178(Q)(7)
“If at any time a powered industrial truck is found to be in need of repair, defective, or in any way unsafe, the truck shall be taken out of service until it has been restored to safe operating condition.”
- OSHA STANDARD 1910.178(P)(1)
Forklift Maintenance Checklists
You can find most operator checklists through your local dealer by contacting them.
To help you better understand how to manage your fleet and keep ahead of its maintenance, you can order daily operator checklists from Lift Power for your Crown Fleet, and you can download operator manuals and order service manuals.
Here is a daily checklist provided by Crown Equipment to help your operators stay on top of their maintenance.
Lift Power’s Preventative Maintenance plans and on-call servicing
To be successful, an operation must run smoothly and efficiently. Without exceptional material handling equipment service and maintenance, this is impossible. So, at Lift Power, we make it a priority to provide every one of our customers with superior service.
Time and Material Service Plan
We have 75 technicians throughout Jacksonville, Ocala, Brunswick, Valdosta, and Savannah and an in-house dispatch team to provide 24-hour service help. Together they create our Time and Material service plan which allows customers to call us to schedule repairs and maintenance, as well as request fleet management/utilization and cost analyses. This plan helps our customers when emergencies happen. As soon as you make a call, one of our local technicians is notified and will drive to you to help get your operation back up and running.
Maintenance Plans
We have three different forklift Maintenance plans
- Preventative Maintenance – which prevents forklifts from failing, keeping your production running and warehouse safe.
- Full Maintenance – is designed to fit any operation’s budget. With consistent monthly rates, this plan gives you the information in advance, so you know exactly how much lift truck repair and periodic maintenance expenses will cost.
- Complete Maintenance – Very similar to a Full Maintenance Plan, Complete Maintenance is a way to keep forklift service and maintenance costs at a fixed rate and includes wheels and tires, unlike the full maintenance plan.
Fleet Management
When your business is booming, and your operations are running at a fast pace, even the most experienced operators can’t catch every error on a forklift. That’s when advanced fleet management systems come in handy. At Lift Power, we work closely with Crown Equipment to provide our customers with wireless management systems for their entire fleet.
FleetSTATS – With the information provided by FleetSTATS, you can track assets, rentals, and life cycle replacements to achieve ongoing improvements across your entire fleet.
InfoLink – The InfoLink system provides new insight into the performance and utilization of connected equipment, people, and processes. You can use it to benchmark your operation and achieve measurable improvements in productivity, safety, uptime, and more.
Together with Lift Power’s wireless management comes comprehensive reporting capabilities. This allows customers to see, by serial number, how much they’ve spent on each lift truck in parts, repairs, and other services. This information helps clients decide whether to repair or replace certain equipment within a fleet.
Contact Lift Power to learn more about our service capabilities https://liftpower.com/service-request/
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