Forklift leasing: Not child's play for COSCO

Child safety seat maker gains from leasing heavy-duty lift trucks matched to application requirements and operator comfort.

Modern Materials Handling - October 2, 2002

COSCO, the manufacturer of child safety seats and related products, believes in leasing its lift trucks, and it does it for five years, no less. An advantage to a lease this long, says Mark King, facilities manager at the company's 850,000 square-foot plant in Columbus, Ind., "is that at the end of the five-year lease most of our lift trucks are worn out. By leasing we get brand new trucks every five years."

At the Columbus plant the company makes and ships monthly some 350,000 seats and a total of 500,000 products.

COSCO averages 2,500 hours per year on each lift truck, which is 1,000 more hours than the industry standard of 1,500 hours. Even when trucks rotate among its facilities, they still get hard usage. Loads average between 3,000 and 4,000 pounds in most applications.

Lift trucks servicing the 24/7 operation at the plastics plant "really get a workout," says King. "And in the high-speed tube mill, which daily produces 150 miles of tubing, the load weights and pace make this the toughest lift truck application in the company," he adds.

The last time COSCO had to make a leasing decision was in late 2001. With the entire fleet of trucks under review, operators were crucial to the selection decision, which also involved input from mechanics and fleet managers. This team chose to lease 25 forklifts from one lift truck manufacturer.

The fact that there are wide-view masts on the trucks was one key factor in the selection process. Most loads handled by COSCO are large. Trucks from this manufacturer are said to increase visibility by 48% overall. This results in less obstructed view forward of the truck, which makes for greater operator efficiency.

Another factor was the trucks' hydraulic suspension for the operator compartment. Vibration is a leading cause of operator fatigue. With some six hours of an eight-hour shift spent on a truck, the operator needs to be free of fatigue and stress. The full floating suspension reduces vibration to very low levels.

A suspension seat, moreover, has a three-position adjustable seat back, together with six-inch front and back seat adjustments.

Reliable engines and transmissions in these forklifts, moreover, translate into low maintenance requirements.

The forklift manufacturer's dealer also assisted COSCO in developing a better logistics plan. This plan includes the staging of materials in racks and the equipping of lift trucks with carton clamps. Employee time is thus not spent in hand loading. And use of the clamps on cartons speeds up the loading of and efficient cubing out of outbound trailers. In most cases, loading is performed without the need for pallets. More products can now be shipped within an eight-hour work shift.