Why Outsourcing Forklift Planned Maintenance Makes Sense

Forklift maintenance is a challenge for businesses due to cost, time, and other operational needs. While keeping all maintenance in-house gives you more control, outsourcing planned maintenance can offer some key benefits. Planned maintenance is where you pay a monthly fee for forklift service. This ensures your forklift is taken care of at regular recommended intervals and prevents you from ignoring the service you need to make your equipment last. Here are the main reasons why businesses should trust an expert maintenance team with their forklift Planned Maintenance.

With this flexibility and no long term commitment, your forklift will have better trade-in value. There are four key points to why planned maintenance will reduce costs and maintain the value and life of the forklift:

Reduced Maintenance Expenses

Trusting outsourced planned maintenance providers helps companies to reduce their recurring expenses. By limiting what replacement parts need to be stocked in-house or reallocating your maintenance team’s time on larger tasks, your company can reduce cash flow challenges and drive greater business efficiency.

Access to Expert Team of Technicians

When choosing a reliable planned maintenance provider, be sure to find out how many technicians they employ and how they are trained. The right provider will have a large team dedicated to advancing their knowledge of maintenance best practices for your specific equipment brand and models. At the Lilly Company, for example, we have over 120 service vehicles in use across our 13 locations to make sure our customers can be taken care of quickly and efficiently.

Improved Fleet Efficiency

The right planned maintenance provider will help to improve your forklift fleet’s efficiency. Thanks to improved regularly scheduled maintenance checks, your forklifts can operate more efficiently and consume less fuel doing so. The right provider will also help reduce fleet downtime, thanks to catching small issues before they can become big problems. These fixes help to reduce your total cost of ownership, by reducing break-fix costs and reducing the need for spare forklifts to keep on hand in case of downtime.

More Time for In-House Techs

With planned maintenance, parts are replaced before they fail. This can reduce damage to other parts and prevent downtime.

Your Maintenance Partner’s History of Excellence

Beyond all the hard costs and optimizations, outsourcing your planned maintenance gives you access to your maintenance partner’s expertise. Be sure to vet your providers thoroughly and choose one that aligns with your company values and needs. The right partner should provide clear communication and help teach you about your forklifts’ needs to help you grow as a business.

Outsourcing your forklift planned maintenance can be a great opportunity to create more positive impacts for your company. Choosing to partner with the Lilly Company can be a great first step. Our 101-year history of excellence speaks for itself, and our use of key technology like True Video to help communicate maintenance needs will help our customers grow with us. Interested? Contact us to learn more about our maintenance plans and get a quote.