fork lift truck industry forecast

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Sir Neville Bowman-Shaw, the outspoken chairman of Samuk Lift Trucks UK, offers what he describes as his “80/20 forecast” for the future of the lift truck industry.

Survival of the fittest

global market has been caused by economic instantaneous electronic communication, airspeed movement of key personnel and lightweight, high value goods. This was followed by quick movement of heavy as well as lighter weight goods by low cost containerisation worldwide within four weeks to 80% of the buyers. During the interwar years, many strong national companies bought or built new subsidiaries in other continents, making similar but different specification products to suit the local markets without realising they should have modified their existing products based on standard major assemblies. For example, this included Vauxhall, Ford, International Harvester and Massey Harris, to mention a few in England.

global market based on empires in which Britain was Great and dominated the global market to the irritation of many.

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A 1939 Daily Telegraph article implies that had the Chamberlain government given limited trade access to a selection of countries, then WWII would have taken a different course. We would have kept half our wealth, but that’s history and it would have been politically unacceptable after 1914-18’s loss of life and cost. The high speed transition of today’s

14 ShD April 2010 www.PressOnShD.com

ow more than three score & 10 years old, I have travelled as an industrialist and watched the world move from a slow-moving

After WWII there were thousands of empty factories that had made military equipment resulting in them copying and making many products in Great Britain. These included 30 lift trucks from Green Bat to Conveyancer to Stacatruc, to mention three. Tragically, mainland Britain will have no large lift truck factory following the closure of the Linde plant Basingstoke. Europe had about 300 makes or brands, and North America over 200. By 2009, only one European-owned brand was in the top-10 world-wide, alongside three USA-owned and four Japanese brands.

There are 40 manufacturers with a minimum turnover of 10.2m, (say £10m) which is very little for a manufacturer trying to survive globally in the relatively small lift truck industry. However, it should be reasonable to expect five manufacturers of volume trucks 1.5-10t @ 500/600 load centre and 35 specialist companies making sideloaders, container handlers, articulated trucks, and others. A 1:7 ratio of volume to specialist

manufacturers is reasonable. Needless to say, a specialist growing with £100m turnover would become an attractive acquisition for one of the majors – almost at any price! Over the next five to 10 years the volume producers should reduce to between five and eight, with one range design probably based on the main factory and original headquarters. In addition, each volume producer is likely to have assembly plants in economic zones having a regional population of 200 to 300 million. By example, an ideal location for Europe would be England because of the universal English language, with an assembly works north of Humber container port and RORO port for finished trucks to the Euro market. In addition, expect government and EU unemployment support, and reduced import duty for components to be incorporated in new products to off-set any protectionist import duty on complete products.

Already England has imposed a 40% prohibitionist import duty on hand pallet trucks, and the USA 35% on selected Chinese industrial tyres, including some for lift trucks. Now, who could be the probable volume producers! Obviously some manufacturers with limited product ranges will stop making low volume or profitless lift trucks, in turn allowing others to increase their volume, achieving a profit. Generally, construction equipment and specialist machine tool makers have better margins, so it’s worth checking lift truck companies with multiple product lines who could delete lift trucks. Lift truck companies are likely to amalgamate for various reasons: • One electric warehouse and one IC counterbalance; • Main factories in different regions, ie USA/E Europe/W Europe/ Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60