A recent study of over 1,400 users of Fork Lift Trucks in the: UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain revealed a market that is becoming ever more demanding and as is so often the case the materials handling market looks to be following patterns established in the automotive sector. We simply don’t expect cars to breakdown anymore so we make decisions on other criteria: image, brand, performance, finance packages available, safety, service, extras etc. Naturally not all of these apply to the purchase of a forklift truck, in truth the image created by the truck people use is probably far less important than the image portrayed by the car someone drives but, in addition to the increasing focus on service levels there is real evidence that people are becoming more concerned with both safety and the environment.
Of these safety is the better defined with users particularly concerned about: operator visibility, noise levels and stability but, environmental performance is becoming an issue - particularly with larger firms. However, while the importance of environmental issues appears to be increasing there are contradictions between what people are saying and what they seem to be doing. For example, although environmental performance is one of the top ten issues people consider when looking to purchase a truck (36% said it was critically important) people are noticeably less concerned about the cost of operation or the lifetime cost of the truck – just 21% said that this was critically important. More worryingly previous studies have shown that less than 20% of users actually monitor the energy costs associated with the use of their Fork Lift Trucks.
In short it is difficult to see how people can be genuinely concerned about the environment or for that matter be including fork lift trucks in the calculation of their company’s carbon footprint if they have no idea how much energy they are actually using!
But, what of the future? Are the patterns witnessed in the automotive markets likely to repeat themselves in the materials handling market? Well, if they do it seems highly likely that truck users will become far more conscious of energy costs and potentially look for trucks that are cheaper to run. By way of comparison the market for “Basic cars”, highly fuel efficient ones such as: Fiat Panda’s, Ford Ka’s, Citroen C1’s, Toyota Aygos etc. increased by over 10% across Western Europe in 2008 compared with a fall of over 6% for all other vehicles. Of course people might be buying “Basic cars” because they are concerned about the environment but, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that people are motivated by what’s good for them financially and if that happens to be “Green” as well it is a bonus! If this pattern is followed in the truck market then energy consumption will become an issue and the demand for fuel efficient trucks is likely to increase.
However, for this to happen people buying trucks need to change the way they think and act. At the moment Price is still considered to be most important issue (critically important to 45% of respondents) compared to: the Price of spare parts (38%), Cost of Service (37%) and Cost of operation (30%). This may be partially attributable to the level of leasing that now takes place but it is also clear that users of trucks are not good at collecting the type of information they need to make more sophisticated purchase decisions based on operational or lifetime costs rather than the upfront price. Although this is not necessarily a problem, with rising energy costs and increasingly complex purchasing agreements a detailed knowledge of operational costs and operating patterns could help users make better informed decisions that are both good for them and Green too.
Notes on the survey: the study consisted of 1,400 interviews with the person in charge of materials handling in manufacturing, distribution and transport and haulage companies in: Germany, France, UK, Italy and Spain. The study was sponsored by: Hyster, Toyota, Yale, Mitsubishi, Crown and Caterpillar.
More information is available from Guy Washer at Redshift Research.