Raymond Handling Concepts halves Darigold lift truck fleet maintenance costs in 60 days

Seattle-based Darigold has been producing fresh dairy products for customers around the globe since 1918. Darigold recently recognized the need to maintain uptime, improve tracking capabilities, and reduce maintenance costs of its lift truck fleet.

Specifically, it wanted to be able to track all maintenance costs in one place, streamline the repair process for its 155 lift trucks, and standardize its fleet across 15 sites. Darigold turned to Raymond Handling Concepts Corporation (RHCC), an authorized Raymond Sales and Service Center in Auburn, Washington.

Within the first six months, one of Darigold’s largest facilities cut its lift truck maintenance costs in half in less than 60 days.

Due to a decentralized method of decision-making and tracking, Darigold could not identify what it was spending per facility on fleet maintenance. “As a company, our needs had evolved,” says Mike Bevers, the company’s director of supply chain purchasing. “We needed a new tracking system for costing analysis, documentation tracking, and a way to determine opportunities to switch out old equipment.”

The stringent health standards of a food production facility were particularly taxing to the fleet, which worked in varied environments such as wash-down stations and cold storage.

RHCC suggested the iTrack system, a fleet tracking system that enabled Darigold to track parts and labor costs per truck, view custom reports that identify facility cost-saving opportunities, conduct fleet replacement analysis, enter and review service orders, and consolidate company invoicing.

According to Bevers, Darigold has experienced considerable increases in productivity due to the substantial reduction in repair costs and downtime.