 Brian Butler |
Industrial Truck Association (ITA) chairman Brian C Butler has underscored the group's priorities for international co-operation, best engineering practices, accurate timely statistics reporting, industry communications, networking and the continuation of collaborative compliance officer training.
Butler began a two-year term as chairman of Washington-based ITA on 1 January.
"As with most industry organisations, there is no lack of challenges and opportunities for us to address as a collective group," he says. "However, ... we must prioritise those challenges and opportunities and focus on the issues where we can be as efficient and effective as possible, recognising our ability to positively impact issues of most concern to us."
ITA continues to monitor and seeks to influence fair- and free-trade policy developments within three evolving entities: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the Transpacific Partnership and the Trade Promotion Authority.
"Our efforts to eliminate tariffs and work towards creating a more level playing field remain a priority for the ITA," Butler says. "Reducing and eliminating tariffs are not short-term efforts" but, if successful, could yield significant results for the industry.
ITA is collaborating with three European and Asian trade groups through the Alliance of Industrial Truck Organizations. "Over the past 16 years, AITO has proved to be a useful tool in the dissemination of information about the global industrial truck market, including orders and shipments, rental markets, emerging markets and government programs covering a host of topics related to our industry," Butler notes.
In communicating with its counterparts, ITA uses the AITO "forum as a platform to continue our efforts for a level playing field for all markets around the world and to capitalise on this established partnership to further our efforts in fair/free trade," he says. AITO meets next on 20 September in the Royal York Hotel in York, England under the auspices of the Federation of European Manufacturers.
In late 2013, ITA completed a computer software upgrade for its internal program reporting industry statistics.
"In order to protect this valuable resource, we launched a new system that utilises some of the latest technology that will carry us forward for the next several years as well as increase speed, reliability and security," Butler notes. "In addition to our statistical program, we survey the regular members of the ITA on a quarterly basis to get a better understanding of the industry's perspective on the market moving forward and conduct our Business Trends Survey annually."
He adds, "Together, these tools provide very valuable market intelligence that is available only to members of the ITA."
The trade group is formulating plans to launch a new initiative - National Forklift Safety Day - on 10 June in Washington with opportunities for ITA member involvement. "This day will serve as a rallying point for manufacturers to highlight the safe use of forklifts," Butler says. "Everyone has to participate." The goal is to educate forklift industry customers and government policy makers and administrators about best practices for forklift safety and the need for continuous operator training.
ITA is continuing its long-term relationship with the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the jointly organised compliance officer training program that began in January 2004. "We have an obligation to make sure we as an industry do everything we can to support forklift operator training and safety," Butler notes.
As of mid-2013, ITA had 19 regular member companies that manufacture forklifts, tow tractors, rough-terrain vehicles, hand pallet trucks and automated guided vehicles and sell more than 90% of the powered industrial trucks sold in North America. ITA had 34 associate member companies that make most of the auxiliary components, accessories and attachments for forklifts manufactured in the US.
Butler is president and chief executive officer of Linde Material Handling North America Corp in Summerville, South Carolina, an operation of the Linde Material Handling GmbH subsidiary of publicly traded KION Group AG of Wiesbaden, Germany.
To facilitate communications and networking, ITA has "two meetings a year for our members, where we provide a forum for both formal and informal discussions" apart from members' official commercial business functions, Butler says. During 2014, ITA will hold its regular spring meeting on 17-19 March at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington and its annual meeting on 3-6 September at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Alberta, Canada.