UniCarriers Americas Corp is providing forklift training to operators. PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

UniCarriers Americas Corp is providing forklift training to hundreds of operators in collaboration with McHenry County College and Rock Valley College.

"On average we offer nine to 10 classes a year at our customer training centre in Marengo," says Wayne Wilde Sr, field technical sales officer, adding that the average intake is about 33 students. The next class will be held on 22 November.

The program began with McHenry College in Crystal Lake in 2005 and was extended to Rock Valley College in Rockford in 2008. The Illinois Community College System consists of 39 public community college districts, composed of 48 community colleges and one multi-college centre.

Wilde says "both of the colleges can and do get Illinois state small business grants" to assist companies needing to get employees to comply with the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration standard.

UniCarriers does not train students on specific types of product. "That must be done on site with the forklift that they will use and the product that they must move," he explains.

An operator must get the certification, approval, licence and authority to operate through an onsite evaluation by someone competent and knowledgeable in that application.

UniCarriers has trained students who work in printing, food warehouse, cold storage and freezer, light manufacturing, state and county and large distribution warehouse applications.

Three UniCarriers Americas trainers conduct the operator and train-the-trainer classes, and they also conduct service training for technicians.

Separately, the in-house University of UniCarriers America College is geared to technicians working for dealers and large customers that have their own service capabilities.

UniCarriers Americas has more than 235 authorised dealerships with 350 locations in North, Central and South America and is a unit of UniCarriers Holdings Corp of Tokyo. UniCarriers Holdings is integrating and merging the operations of the Nissan, Barrett and TCM forklift brands and moving toward use of a unified UniCarriers forklift identification.