When Morgan Weis, a TFS account executive, visits facilities to discover what’s on executives’ minds, she hears a lot about safety. That’s not a big surprise, since it has always been a major concern. However, when many businesses transformed the way they operated during the pandemic, they found their safety practices—already a touchy subject—just couldn’t keep pace.

For example, as many facilities saw organic growth from e-commerce, they also began keeping more inventory on hand. That meant warehouse space became tighter, making it more difficult to safely maneuver forklifts. Add the “Great Resignation” and employee retention into the mix and many companies realized they needed to get serious about workers’ well-being.

Is a hidden cost lurking in your facility?

If your company is like most companies, you're spending significant—and unnecessary—money on rental equipment. And that cost is flying under the radar.

While practically every facility needs rental equipment occasionally, rentals should be a short-term solution. But, once rentals are on site, they often get lost in the mix. The supply chain crisis only compounded this issue, since rentals spiked as companies waited months for equipment.

The fleet management playbook for on-road trucks and commercial vehicles has evolved a great deal over the past 25 years. It’s truly inspiring to see the strides made in terms of operational productivity, safety, and sustainability.

However, there’s another fleet, equally important in terms of keeping businesses running, that has not made the same advancements. Forklift fleet management remains largely stuck in the past.

TFS employees visit thousands of facilities each year. That's how we know that even the most respected names in manufacturing and distribution—Fortune 500 companies with huge budgets—are struggling.

While these big companies have more advantages than most of their peers, they still deal with long MHE lead times, labor shortages, and extreme pressure from the C-suite. We often find that material handling execs have no idea how many MHEs they have overall, let alone in different locations. They've usually lost track of the expensive rentals they're using to fill the gaps while they wait for equipment. And forget about getting the data they need…

At TFS, we talk to a lot of companies about material handling. What we’ve found is that most businesses don’t even realize they’re not actively managing their forklift fleets and facilities.

Yes, it’s absolutely true that most are doing some sort of management, but when we crunch the numbers to demonstrate how much money they’re leaving on the table, they’re stunned. 

That’s because active fleet management means more than just dealing with a vendor to choose forklifts and negotiate a monthly payment.

Welcome to the Fleet & Facility Roundup! We’ve curated the latest, most practical news to help you keep up with material handling developments and insights.

Our takeaway this month? Inflation is up, lead times are still long, and the supply chain remains chaotic, so it’s safe to say that the end isn’t in sight yet. In short, it’s an ideal time to assess what actions you and your company have taken so far and see what efforts are paying off and which need to be redirected.

The pandemic, inflation, supply chain issues, labor shortages, and more: companies are grappling with one of the most unpredictable times in modern history—and material handling has been hit especially hard. While it may feel that you have no effective way to control costs, the good news is that you likely have many more options than you think.

It’s officially Spring! As if the world didn’t have enough going on already, unexpected things continue to crop up, such as the first Amazon union and the Ever Given’s sister ship, which also got stuck, exemplifying the worst kind of sibling rivalry.

To help you keep up, we curate all the need-to-know material handling news every month—so read on!

Last time, we said that “2022 promises to remain a rollercoaster” and that turns out to have been an understatement. While we can’t possibly keep you up-to-date with the firehose of information that is the state of the world, the Supply Chain Roundup can curate the most valuable and innovative takes on supply chains, logistics, and material handling. If you'd like to sign up to receive it via email once a month, please subscribe (if you don’t already)!

As 2022 promises to remain a rollercoaster, The Supply Chain Roundup will make it easy to stay on top of the news by curating the most valuable and innovative takes on supply chains, logistics, and material handling. If you'd like to sign up to receive it via email once a month, please subscribe!