Lee Smith, dealer principal of Toyota Forklifts of Atlanta, accepts a new service van from Terry Rains, vice president of aftermarket sales for Toyota Material Handling.

Atlanta Forklifts Inc has upgraded its services and efficiency, increased employment and recorded major sales increases.

According to Lee Smith, owner, chief executive and president of Atlanta Forklifts (trading as Toyota Forklifts of Atlanta), the company represents Toyota Industries Corp's forklift and Aichi scissor lift and boom lift lines; Landoll Corp's Bendi narrow-aisle forklift trucks and Drexel SwingMast forklifts; Hoist Liftruck Manufacturing Inc's container handlers, reachstackers and heavy-duty forklifts; Textron Inc's Cushman commercial and utility vehicles; and, since January 2012, Cargotec Corp's Princeton truck-mounted forklifts.

In addition to the Scottdale headquarters, the firm has full-service Lawrenceville and Lithia Springs branches serving the Atlanta metropolitan region and a full-service Augusta branch in eastern Georgia.

In applying best practices and seeking more efficiency, the dealership increased lighting over service bays and parts counters and applied uniformity among the tools for its shop and on-the-road technicians. "We give a truck, tool box, compressor and vice to each tech to do the job on the road, and we spent about USD7,000 per service bay for tool cabinets," he says.

Simple things get attention: correct hours posted on the entry door, customer parking spaces, placards identifying solvents and posting of hazardous-material regulations.

Smith cites an example involving the accounting department. "All documents need to be shredded. Now, accounting has a rolling trash can instead of having documents piled up in every corner."

The dealership moved shop service stalls closer to the parts department, set lines to define spaces throughout the building, added tool and supply vending machines and changed floor colours. Dealer principal Smith credits Toyota Material Handling USA Inc (TMHU) for its help in identifying the needs. TMHU in 2004 launched its Aftersales Service Evaluation and Certification (ASEC) program.

In using vending machines, Atlanta Forklifts finds significant benefits in its relationship with publicly traded Fastenal Co of Winona, Minnesota, a major distributor of industrial, safety and construction supplies. Fastenal competes with a unit of Barnes Group Inc of Bristol, Connecticut.

Fastenal's electronic vending machines improve technician accessibility to safety gear, cutting tools, metal fabrication supplies and general maintenance items. Smith refers to a YouTube "Fast 5000" video in which Fastenal-sponsored NASCAR driver Carl Edwards explains the automated Internet-based system that can eliminate a dealership's experience with stock-outs, excess inventory and purchase orders.

Recently, TMHU presented Atlanta Forklifts with an equipped service van - as an addition to the dealership's 70-van fleet - and an award for implementing the ASEC program. "The support, effort, ideas and energy that Lee Smith and everyone at Toyota Forklifts of Atlanta put into implementing the ASEC program is outstanding," says Terry Rains, vice president of aftermarket sales at TMHU. "The program not only improves processes at the dealership, it improves the experience for the customer."

As part of the process, the TMHU aftermarket sales team took 17 US dealers to visit two forklift businesses in Japan in December 2011. "We looked at nuances, brought those ideas back and got serious," Smith says.

Atlanta Forklifts participants included Smith; Jim MacGregor, vice president of aftermarket; and Jeff Morris, corporate service manager.

Smith praises TMHU for encouraging all of its dealers to adopt the discipline and methodology in the ASEC procedures. The rigour helps as the US market becomes more homogeneous.

"We are sending more trucks out of our territory, and we are servicing more trucks from out of our territory," Smith notes. The transition requires a large entity such as TMHU to have each dealer across the country standardise on ASEC procedures. Aftermarket services consultant John Walker of Fort Mill, South Carolina assists Atlanta Forklifts in some of the operational changes.

Atlanta Forklifts added personnel in the past year and now employs a staff of 153. "We are going up in the next year by 5-7%," Smith says.

His late father, Robert L Smith Sr, started the business in 1973 as an independent forklift service and began representing the Toyota brand in 1977.

Lee Smith joined the business in 1978 after completing college studies, and two of his sons are now with the company. Joshua Smith came aboard in 2011 and is sales co-ordinator. Zach Smith started in January 2013 and is a new equipment sales representative. Both are located in the Lawrenceville facility.

Atlanta Forklifts projects 2013 sales of USD72 million, a major jump from USD53 million in 2012. Smith characterises it as "purely an increase in pent-up demand (with) most of the increase from new equipment sales".

TMHU, Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Inc and Raymond Corp report to management and organisation entity Toyota Material Handling North America, a unit of Toyota Industries Corp in Kariya, Japan.

Smith observes market consolidation among vendors and customers. He cites the relocation of construction firm Pulte Homes Inc to growth-area Atlanta from a suburb of bankrupt Detroit, Michigan. "Roofing companies are buying each other out, and manufacturers are buying competitive manufacturers," he says.