History of Forklifts (Continued)

The 1980’s brought many changes to the market place and saw the introduction of foreign manufactured forklifts in the US marketplace. Toyota forklifts and Nissan forklifts were becoming major competitors to the traditional US companies along with Daewoo of Korea. The emergence of automated and wire guidance systems fork lift trucks was taking the lift truck in new directions while consolidation within the industry continued with the merger of Hyster Company and Yale Materials Handling in 1989.

Through the 1990’s and on to today, the lift truck has continued to evolve. Consolidation continued in the industry as Toyota acquired Raymond Corporation along with BT Prime Mover and Clark has been acquired by An Hat.

Forklift trucks have been developed which allowed the tremendous increase in use of containers to move the cargo of the world and lift trucks are no longer simply pieces of bulky industrial equipment. Today’s forklift is ergonomically designed to provide optimum operator comfort and productivity with styling to match. Today’s forklift trucks can be equipped with a wide range of electronic equipment to interface with cargo management systems and new RFID technology to increase productivity – a long way from the platform lift tractors of the last century. To view Raymond Corporations newest line click forklifts.

More Info: Forklift History with Hooper Handling.