Handling heavy wood and lumber loads

LUMBER YARDS EMBRACING NEW FORKLIFT TECHNOLOGIES

Challenges

TURN YOUR LUMBER YARD HEADACHES INTO OPPORTUNITIES

Your lumber operation faces major hurdles as you try to meet both demand and service expectations while protecting your bottom line.

Luckily, Hyster is ready to provide top-tier material handling solutions for lumber yards and sawmills in the wood industry, with tough forklifts that can enhance your fleet efficiency and reduce downtime. These heavy duty forklift solutions offer a variety of power sources to help you with your sustainability and environmental goals, a robust telemetry solution to support your operation success, and a great number of ergonomic features to help improve forklift operator productivity.

Large stacks of timber logs sit in front of a bridge.

HEAVY CONSOLIDATION in the wood and lumber industry

Access to materials, shrinking profit margins and tightening regulation continues to drive the wave of consolidation in the lumber industry.

  • Right-size your lumber fleet and extend the useful life of equipment
  • Drive efficiency and lower operating costs with forklift telematics
  • Deploy a balanced combination of lift trucks to handle a variety of tasks
KEEP COSTS LOW
A Hyster lift truck carries a stack of lumber planks.

Lumber yards and sawmills are tough environments

Dust, dirt, wood chips, rough terrain and outdoor weather conditions can push your materials handling equipment and operators to their limit.

How are you going to keep handling timber and wood efficiently?

  • Maximize productivity with forklifts designed for the demands of handling raw lumber or other finished wood product
  • Help prevent damage to finished materials (OSB) with lumber specific lift truck features, like rubber coated forks, mud guards or lumber stabilizers based on your unique needs
  • Defend against dust and debris with forklift equipped with a reverse fan solution to help protect internal components and reduce the frequency of cleanouts
COMBAT THE TOUGH CONDITIONS IN LUMBER YARDS
An employee in safety gear measures a stack of lumber.

Labor Retention in the Lumber Industry

Even the most successful companies struggle with recruiting and retaining qualified talent in a tough working environment. Navigating high staff turnover and a limited pool of suitably qualified candidates requires a strong focus on operator needs.

How are you going to reduce turnover?

  • Support operator comfort with advanced ergonomic lift truck solutions
  • Keep your team engaged by implementing continuous training and development programs
  • Help forklift operators to work efficiently and productively all shift by minimizing equipment downtime
Deploy the right solutions
Reforestation

Environmental Impact of Material Handling

You face the challenge of meeting strong demand for quality timber products while minimizing adverse effects on the environment and human health.

How will you minimize the impact?

  • Develop a recycling plan for by-products of your timber operation
  • Embrace alternative power sources like lithium-ion and thin plate pure lead (TPPL) to power your forklift fleets
  • Keep internal combustion engine (ICE) emissions in check using materials handling equipment that meets EPA requirements and offer high fuel efficiency
GO GREEN
A worker in safety gear looks at a notepad next to stacks of timber.

Lumber yard safety

Working in a lumber yard or sawmill can be one of the most dangerous occupations.

How can you help keep your employees safe and reduce incidents?

  • Establish a culture of safety starting at the top and adopted by all
  • Consider stability systems to help support operator confidence when handling long planks or oversized unpalletized loads
  • Use telematics to track lift truck access and provide operator training updates
  • Enhance visibility and operator protection with next generation equipment, like a fully enclosed and air-conditioned cab that prioritizes excellent all-around visibility
MINIMIZE RISK, MAXIMIZE COMPLIANCE
 
 

Solutions

Dominate and Excel with Industrial Forklifts for Lumber Yards

Exceed your expectations with tough and game changing material handling solutions that deliver efficiency, and can be adapted with specific features ideal for the lumber and wood industry.

Proven Approaches

Proven Approaches to Increase Productivity.

Innovations to help reduce downtime and improve safety - ultimately lowering your operating costs.

Cover of Hyster’s “Safety innovations for constantly evolving operations” white paper

Increase safety through innovation

Your operations are always evolving and so are the material handling solutions designed to help keep your employees safe and reduce incidents.

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Hyster Tracker telemetry portal on an iPad overseeing a busy indoor storage environment

Use your data to cut operating costs

Discover how telemetry and fleet management can help increase uptime and lower total cost of ownership of your lift trucks.

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Atom illustration with power button in the middle

POWER UP COST SAVINGS AND PERFORMANCE

With the industry’s widest range of power sources from a variety of brands, you can get the very best solution available in today’s market to maximize your operations.

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Cover of Hyster’s “Rethink your lift truck power” white paper

RETHINK YOUR LIFT TRUCK POWER

A forklift power source affects an operation’s productivity, labor retention, maintenance costs, sustainability and so much more. Is yours truly optimal?

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