Toyota Industries Corp (TICO) has restructured its materials handling businesses globally and combined the North American management and operations for the Toyota and Raymond forklift brands.

Effective 1 April, Kazue Sasaki is chairman and James Malvaso is president and chief executive officer of Toyota Material Handling North America (TMHNA), with the leadership based in Columbus, Indiana at the site of the forklift manufacturing headquarters and plant operating as Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Inc (TIEM).

TMHNA includes TIEM, forklift marketing and sales unit Toyota Material Handling USA Inc (TMHU) of Irvine, California and electric warehouse forklift supplier Raymond Corp of Greene, New York.

Sasaki continues as president of TIEM and Toyota Industries North America Inc. Recently, Sasaki was a TICO senior managing officer.

Malvaso continues as Raymond chairman but cedes his roles as Raymond president and CEO. He was Raymond chairman, president and CEO for 13 years. Malvaso is a past president of the Washington, DC-based Industrial Truck Association, a materials handling industry group for which he continues as a director and executive committee member.

Brett Wood continues as TMHU president, his position since 2008.

In promotions for the Raymond line, Charles Pascarelli is now president of the Raymond sales division, and Michael Field is president of the Raymond operations division. Pascarelli joined Raymond in 2007 and was named executive vice president of sales and marketing in 2009. Field joined Raymond in 2004 and was named executive vice president of operations in 2009.

Ed Rompala serves as TMHNA chief financial officer and continues as Raymond CFO, a position he has held since 1998.

Hitoshi Matsuoka is now TMHNA executive co-ordinator and continues as TMHU executive vice president and treasurer.

Kazuhiro Kurosaka is now TMHNA co-ordinator and continues as TIEM finance and planning coordinator.

In 2005, Kariya-based TICO originated a long-term evolutionary growth plan that culminates in part with the current restructuring.

TICO formed another entity, Toyota Material Handling Group, to leverage the global Toyota, BT and Raymond brands and operations. In turn, the group formed TMHNA as a framework to support the North American market. In addition to TMHNA, other entities under the group are Toyota Material Handling Europe, Toyota Material Handling International, Toyota Material Handling Australia, Toyota Material Handling China and Toyota Material Handling Japan.

Toyota has marketed forklifts in North America for more than 40 years and established the Indiana manufacturing capability 20 years ago. The North American restructuring aims to capitalise on business efficiencies and resource sharing to pursue ongoing continual improvement of quality, service and support for the operations.