New initiative to drive down costs
September 1st 2010

Warehouse facilities are output-target driven and often have high staff turnover. In such environments accidents and other forklift problems can occur but, according to Toyota, costs can be minimised

Accidents and damage can have a huge impact within an organisation, as well as being an unnecessary cost. Damage can relate to goods, infrastructure and truck downtime, as the pictures below illustrate. Toyota estimates that for every pound spent on repairing damage for forklifts, another £10 is spent on repairing damage to associated equipment such as goods, racks and infrastructure.

The company says that on a 200 unit site operating on a multi shift basis with 600 operatives, the annual cost of repairing damage to trucks is typically greater than £250,000. It rates potential consequential annual costs on buildings, goods and infrastructure to be up to £2.5m per annum.

Pride in Performance

In a bid to drive down the cost of damage, Toyota has been running its Pride in Performance (PIP) initiative, which has helped warehouse managers save significant sums, according to the company.

PIP involves the use of Toyota’s fleet management tool I_Site, as well as taking steps to raise awareness and create a culture of responsibility. One tool deployed is the use of a standard measurement system for operatives based on a point scoring system. This provides a personal record of achievement for each driver.

Cost savings

After implementation of PIP, Toyota has reported falling non-contract costs for customers over the last five years. The data released by Toyota is:

• FY 06 £9.16 per truck per week.

• FY 07 £3.21 per truck per week.

• FY 08 £2.28 per truck per week.

• FY 09 £2.32 per truck per week.

• FY 10 YTD £1.22 per truck per week.

To support the Pride in Performance programme, Toyota is offering a free support pack, including a handbook for supervisors, safety posters and other useful resources.

• Toyota will be launching an initiative on PIP at one of its three workshop sessions at this year’s IMHX (16th to 19th November, NEC, Birmingham).

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