Toyota 8-Series internal combustion forklift

The Toyota forklift team marks a milestone on 4 November on the completion of a USD4.6 million improvement at its North American headquarters in Columbus.

Toyota Material Handling USA (TMHU) is in the third phase of relocating some associates from the previous headquarters location in Irvine, California to the 126-acre Indiana campus of Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Inc (TIEM). During 2012, relocation plans were announced in April, and construction details were outlined in October.

A 21,400 sqft. (1,988 sqm) addition supports TMHU associates and new offices for the national headquarters. The TMHU and TIEM combined campus include the headquarters, national customer centre, training centre, manufacturing operations and distribution centres for equipment and service parts.

The combined TMHU and TIEM campus now totals more than 1 million sqft. (92,900 sqm) of manufacturing and support space. More than 1,000 associates work at the Columbus site.

TIEM produces the majority of Toyota forklift trucks sold in North America.

Toyota plans a ceremony recognising its newest 8-Series large-capacity forklift line and commemorating the 450,000th forklift produced since output at the plant began in 1990.

TMHU is completing its second phase of the relocation, which primarily consists of administrative functions.

Approximately one-third of the Irvine associates in these departments agreed to relocate. TMHU has hired and continues to actively recruit to fill the positions that are vacated. Recently, TMHU began the third and final phase of the relocation and anticipates completing the relocation by July 2014.

The management and organisation structure Toyota Material Handling North America oversees the operations of TMHU, TIEM and Raymond Corp in Greene, New York.