TASK Forklifts designs, engineers and manufactures a range of pedestrian walkie stackers for the materials handling industry. Acquisition International magazine has recognised the company for its award in Most Outstanding Forklifts Manufacturer 2022 – Australia, so we explore what the company has to offer customers.
In Australia, TASK Forklifts provides options for sale, hire and servicing to both end-user customer and dealerships. In the United States, it works with over 140 selected dealers throughout the country to provide quality, Australian designed pedestrian stackers. As the designer and manufacturer, the company guarantees 100% genuine spare parts support for all its models.
TASK Forklifts’ success is driven by its expert sales team, its ability to service and support not only its own brand but many other forklift models, and its unrivalled experience of engineering, designing and manufacturing a customer-focused product.
In the 41 years that TASK Forklifts has been trading, its most important goal has been to provide exceptional customer service and support at every stage of the customer journey. In many ways, the customer’s order is the start of the journey – unfortunately, many competitors see it as the end.
TASK Forklifts serves a diverse customer base across Australia and the United States. Each business’s needs and requirements are different and that requires a premium level of customer relationship. Its guidance to customers is individualised to suit them – This is where TASK Forklifts really excels. Its customer-oriented, solution-based approach allows the customer to make correct, informed decisions with the knowledge that they will be backed by exceptional after-sales support for the lifetime of their forklift.
The company prides itself on its ability to continuously support its full product range through a comprehensive stock of genuine spare parts and provide technical assistance to field service technicians. It does this by using intelligent diagnostic tool, TASK iD.
TASK iD allows remote field service technicians to receive direct support from TASK Forklifts’ factory-based support team in Australia to view the status and extended information about the forklift; assess current active faults; see a full history of the forklift including any issues relating to the unit and the battery; adjust settings and parameters for speed and braking to suit warehouse requirements and limitations; and upload the latest firmware updates to ensure the forklift is optimised to the highest level of efficiency.
The distinctive level of manufacturer-backed support ensures the forklift or pedestrian stacker purchased by the customer will always be maintained using the correct repair procedures and use genuine TASK Forklift parts. These parts all meet the company’s reliability, safety and quality levels.
90% of the TASK Forklifts’ rental fleet in Australia is made up of TASK Forklift models. This is a testament to the reliability of these pedestrian stackers, and forklifts, and when combined with the availability of genuine parts and correct maintenance, reduces downtime and offers significantly low running costs for its rental fleet.
TASK Forklifts’ experience and expertise in manufacturing and engineering enables it to provide custom-built solutions, all of which are tested and exceed ISO International Safety Standards.
Of course, TASK Forklifts’ service and product offering would be nothing without its staff, who are incredible. The honesty, passion and dedication they have is refreshing and vital for the success of the company. When it looks to recruit, it looks at how that individual will fit into the team, and if they are capable of their own personal development.
Embracing workplace diversity is very much part of TASK Forklifts’ internal culture. It sees it as a huge strength, enabling its staff to bring different ideas, suggestions and solutions to the workplace.
The company encourages constant career and personal development to ensure each team member has their own set of skills, with many of these skills overlapping into other areas. This level of team cohesion is crucial for the success of the business. Each member of the team has contributed to the overall success, and as such, these successes are celebrated as a team.
During the past two years, the team has been presented with a fresh set of challenges in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic, including contactless interaction and border closures between states and countries. TASK Forklifts was already on the trajectory to change many of the traditional processes in customer management, which allowed it to quickly adapt to the rapidly changing times. With the use of video conferencing and how-to videos, its customers could still receive support without the need for business development managers to meet in person.
Further to this, the company’s understanding of the ever-evolving consumer behaviour patterns gave it an opportunity to educate its potential customer by offering them information and pricing without the need to enquire. This is a very different model to many of its competitors in Australia, which it believes gives it a competitive advantage in a saturated market.
As a result of the pandemic, logistics and freight remain a significant challenge in all industries. TASK Forklifts’ sales and manufacturing forecasts, experience in customer service, and customer market research allowed it to overcome many of the issues faced with logistics and stock availability.
The company is now in a position where it is ahead of the logistical curve and holds impressive levels of stock of its core range, allowing it to dispatch many of these models within five working days. Its main factory in Adelaide, South Australia also allows it to refabricate and provide custom build solutions to these products, further reducing delivery times. TASK Forklifts has always consistently ensured that its core range utilises its unique modular design, the outcome resulting in huge reductions in lead times for customers and dealers.
Meanwhile, the environmental impact of the business is essential to the company’s corporate responsibility. TASK Forklifts has implemented an action plan focused on the reduction of the carbon footprint generated by the different actions and operations of the business.
It has already invested in the use of clean, renewable, and sustainable solar energy to assemble and manufacture forklifts – This is a substantial step in reducing its carbon footprint.
A unique point of difference in TASK Forklifts’ models compared to its competitors is the use of a modular steel body – All of these components provide a rugged, strong frame and are all 100% recyclable. It is also utilising a unique thin plate pure lead acid battery (TPPL) for its new range of BOA legless stackers. These TPPL batteries are easily and almost completely recyclable. This allows the company to boast an impressive 90% recyclability for its new BOA legless stacker.
Having now entered its 41st year of offering quality, reliable material handling equipment, TASK Forklifts is looking forward to what it has in store for its operations both in Australia and in the USA.
The pedestrian operated market is the only segment of the forklift industry which has continued to grow in the last five years. The company expects this segment will represent more than 37% of the total market some time this year, and it is forecasting an exciting growth pattern, particularly in the US market. As businesses across the world reopen and go back to full productivity, there will be a focus on efficiency, simplicity, and automation to drive down costs and increase profits.
In the US, TASK Forklifts is represented through more than 140 dealer sites and it plans on increasing this number to 200 by the end of the year.
In Australia, its focus will continue to be its protection of its global supply chain, and ensuring that a range of locally sourced, manufactured parts and quality, globally recognised components are readily available.
TASK Forklifts is also investing in researching and developing its flagship BOA legless stacker. Its goal is to update, enhance and produce quality, reliable and affordable products for its customers. Further to this, it will be working with accredited third parties to offer options of complete automation for the ever-changing warehouse and distribution centre configurations.
For further information, please contact Ollie Taylor via email at [email protected] or visit www.taskforklifts.com.au
