BuyerZone: Hello and welcome. I'm Jeremy Sacco, an editor here at BuyerZone, where we give you everything you need to make the right purchases for your business. Our topic today is forklifts: what's new in 2008, how you can make the right purchasing decision, and what features you should look for. We talked with Corinne Kator, an editor at Modern Materials Handling, one of the industry's leading publication, about forklifts – let's go see what she had to say.

BZ: Let's start with – what's the biggest story in forklifts for 2008?

Corinne Kator: I'm not sure there's going to be a big story in forklifts for '08, at least not that I'm aware of, but I can tell what the buzzword is for '08, I've seen it already, and that's green. As in, environmental sustainability. It's probably the buzzword in every industry right now, but every press release I've received so far this year has some claim that someone's forklifts are green, or their manufacturing processes are green, everybody wants to be the green company. My own opinion is that we've just begun to figure out what it means to be green, so I'm not paying that much attention to everybody's green claims just yet.

BZ: Once a buyer narrows down their choices to a range of fl that meet their height requirements, and their lift requirements, and will fit down the aisles of their warehouse – once they have these models in mind, what are the most important characteristics they should look for in a forklift?

CK: Well the first thing that comes to mind is ergonomics. If you think about your forklift operator, the cab of that forklift is his office. And just like I sit at a desk all day and I want that desk to be a comfortable height, and I want my chair to be comfortable, and I want to be able to see my screen, and I want a wrist pad for my keyboard – all those things give me a comfortable workspace, and the cab of a forklift is the operator's workspace and needs to be comfortable, especially if he or she is going to be in that truck for a full shift. So that's one of the first things that comes to mind is ergonomics and the comfort of the forklift. The other thing that comes to mind is the total operating cost of the forklift. It's easy to compare the purchasing price of a forklift, but you also have to remember that it costs money to operate these trucks, and so if you look at fuel consumption and maintenance and all of those requirements, try to figure out what really the full cost of that forklift is going to be for you.

BZ: So once somebody decides on a couple of models of forklifts that do meet all their needs and have the right ergonomics, how important is the test drive? What are the routines, or how should somebody make sure they get the right experience out of a test drive?

CK: I think a test drive, or a demo, as they're often called in the industry, is really important. I would think that most forklift dealers would be happy to bring a truck out to your facility, to demonstrate it for you, and then to let you use it in your real operations for several days. That's probably the best way to really get a feel for the forklift, and to see if it's really comfortable for your operators and if it can really do what you need it do on a day-to-day basis.

BZ: Several days is a pretty serious test drive.

CK: Yeah, and sometimes I think up to a week.

BZ: Wow, that's fantastic.

CK: It's a big sale for a dealership to make, so they want to make sure you're going to be happy in it. If they're confident in their forklifts, and confident in the way they're going to perform, they'll be happy to bring it out to you facility and let you use it.

BZ: Well, now you know a little bit more about purchasing forklifts. If you're ready to start talking to forklift dealers in your area, visit buyerzone.com, and we'll connect you to the leading dealerships. Thanks for listening.

BuyerZone: Hello again and welcome. I’m Jeremy Sacco, an editor here at BuyerZone. We're giving you more information about forklifts – today's topic: fuel cells. Wave of the future? Ready for prime time? Is it something that your business should be aware of? Come find out as we talk once again to Corinne Kator from Modern Materials Handling magazine.

BZ: Are hydrogen fuel cells starting to have an impact on the forklift industry yet?

Corinne Kator: I don't know if you can say that they're having an impact just yet. There are a lot of trials and tests going on out there in the industry, but I've only heard of really one major sale in the industry in the last year or so, so I don't know if they're really having an impact yet. There's definitely interest out there, but not a lot of use of them in the market yet.

BZ: Which manufacturers have introduced fuel cell forklifts so far?

CK: Well I think all of the major manufacturers are interested in fuel cells, but at the moment, as far as I know, none of them are actually offering fuel cell forklifts. What you can get instead are – you buy a regular battery-powered forklift, and then you can buy from a fuel cell supplier a power pack that replaces your battery. There are three major suppliers in the market that I know of that are supplying those battery replacement packs, and they are PlugPower, Hydrogenics, and a company called Nuvera.

BZ: For any, say, modern electric-powered forklift?

CK: My understanding is that all of these companies are trying to create something that can just swap in and replace the battery with no modifications to the truck. My suspicion is that there is still modification to the truck that needs to be done, so the manufacturer of the forklift is usually involved, I think, when there are trials of fuel cells going on in the market.

BZ: What would the main reasons be to make this switch – to replace a battery with a fuel cell?

CK: There are lots of different things that the fuel cell companies talk about as benefits, but the main one for the forklift market is increased productivity. When you're in a production environment, you want to be able to use your equipment go go go go go without stopping. Right now, with battery powered forklifts, those batteries are really heavy. When they run out, you have to take your truck to the battery room, you have to use equipment to lift out the heavy battery, to put it in the charging station, to get a new battery out of the charger, to put it in your forklift – it's a really time consuming process. If you had a fuel cell, and you're getting close to running out of fuel, you drive over to a refueling station, it takes a couple of minutes, and then you just keep going. Reduced downtime is supposed to be the main benefit of fuel cells.

BZ: Are there any situations where companies would be better off sticking with traditional batteries?

CK: Right now, hydrogen fuel cells are really expensive. I think a lot of people would argue that they're not reliable yet. That I don't know, I haven't actually used them myself so it's hard for me to say, but right now, the trials and tests that I know of are being backed by some kind of a grant or government funding. Right now it's just really expensive to go with fuel cells, so we have to wait for the prices of those fuel cells to come down before it's feasible for most users.