COUNTERBALANCE
A high-quality and reliable lift truck is well worth its investment in a manufacturing and warehouse environment.
Forklifts improve productivity – making once manual tasks less strenuous for employees and more efficient for your business. As a daily workhorse, it’s easy to see why these trucks become a significant part of your operation.
While lift trucks undoubtedly add value to your organization, don’t overlook the opportunity to purchase equipment customized for your operators and application.
RICO doesn’t only sell out of the box lift truck solutions. We often collaborate with customers to custom engineer vehicles for their specific needs. Project discovery discussions help our team understand what’s most important to a customer and develop truck features that exceed their goals.
Truck size and component changes, custom load and lift requests, added safety features and even riding style are some of the customization options buyers should explore.
Size, Components and Riding Style
Your truck should fit your business – in size and power. RICO tailors lift trucks to handle your application’s workday and maneuver within your environment. Depending on the load and capacity demands, the truck frame and body can be increased. Internal components like motors, transmissions, wheel size can scale up and down depending on the level of power required.
Trucks can be powered in a variety of different ways including battery, LP, diesel, and hydrostatic vehicles. Even the battery size can be adjusted to fit a customer’s power specifications.
Another customization request is varying riding styles including walk behind, stand-up rider and sit-down rider. Rider trucks can also be configured so the operator faces toward, away or perpendicular to the truck load.
Common for applications where the operator must get on and off the lift truck frequently, standing operation can be useful in light manufacturing and basic warehousing like grocery stores or food and beverage distributors.
Lift and Load
Different load and lift requirements are often customized for the end user.
Your load size will factor into the customization of both the forks and the lift height. Each application will have unique demands, including varying functional, height and load requirements.
The forks of your lift truck can be tailored for specific uses. Depending on the products and materials you need to transport, fork width, separation, and length can all be custom specified. For example, standard fork lengths reach 48,” but we have installed forks as long as 144” on our custom-built vehicles. Even minor changes as simple as fork tip color can be modified, often painted a bright yellow for safety precautions.
Lift height is another common customization request. While there is no standard lift height, custom height requests have reached as high as 237” in unique models.
Safety Customizations
Lift truck safety features should benefit both the operator and others working around the heavy-duty equipment daily. Added safety customizations serve as investments in a company’s safety plan and are often inexpensive.
Common safety add-ons for the operator include a raised seat, operator cameras and rearview mirrors for a wider range of visibility.
Additional audio and visual features, like alarms and lights, improve employee awareness and mitigate accidents. Blue strobe lights are a trending safety accessory, offering better visibility in advance for passing workers.
When investing in a lift truck, exploring customization options that can better your vehicle’s productivity and safety is a critical part of the buying process. Just as crucial, however, is partnering with a lift truck manufacturer who understands the importance of meeting your custom demands and makes it a priority.
RICO vehicles are custom built to meet your specific application and the load requirements of any industry. Call us at 330-723-4050 or contact us to learn more.