Hyster Forklift

Hyster Forklift Training Kingston - Hyster is an industry leader in the materials handling industry that has been in business for more than eighty years. However, it started as a producer of lifting machinery and winches. Most of its production was concentrated in the northwest United States and dealt primarily with the timber and logging industry. A couple years after the first forklift trucks were invented Hyster became synonymous with quality production. Over the preceding 80 years Hyster has continued to get bigger and grow its product line. The expansion of its products coupled with its want to stay service oriented has allowed Hyster to develop into the international player it is at the moment.

The 30 years between 1940's and the 1960's saw a large evolution in the amount of products offered under the Hyster brand name. In 1946, Hyster opened a plant in Danville, Illinois that was entirely devoted to mass producing trucks. This allowed Hyster to drive its expenses down and, simultaneously, offer a better quality product at industry competitive prices. In 1952, Hyster began its first foray in to the international production market through opening its first plant in the Netherlands. The Netherlands plant was originally designed to produce two products: Hyster 40" and the Karry Kranes.

The ever varying needs of Hyster consumers and Hyster's talent to continue to innovate led to rapid growth throughout the fifties and 1960's. They began constructing container handlers in the US in 1959 to satisfy the ever expanding demand for transportation goods. In 1966, Hyster developed a technique for allowing a lift truck to go both ahead and backwards using the same pedal. This pedal was referred to as the Monotrol pedal, which revolutionized the industry. Later on in the decade Hyster opened a R&D centre in Oregon that was focused on enhancing the design and performance of forklifts. The centre is still one of the world's best testing facilities in the materials handling industry.

As demand for materials handling equipment continued to expand rapidly through the sixties, Hyster considered it necessary to reorient its focus towards these new mass markets. Thus, in 1970, the XL design philosophy was born. The XL design philosophy allowed Hyster to offer superior quality at a more reasonable cost. A further expansion in production capabilities was necessitated by the demand in Europe for Internal Combustion Engine Trucks. To fill this gap, a plant in Craigavon, Ireland was opened in 1980. Through the 80's Hyster continued to concentrate on developing industry leading lift trucks. The Hyster company name was recognized throughout the world for its commitment towards quality. This attention to quality produced numerous suitors for the company. In 1989, a large multinational corporation based in Ohio called NACCO Industries purchased Hyster and began an aggressive growth strategy. NACCO swiftly changed the XL philosophy with a more driver oriented forklift that focused on operator comfort, which is identified as the XM generation of trucks.

The evolving needs of Hyster's customers, led by improvements in supply chain management, required Hyster to constantly innovate and invest in new production systems during the next few decades. Acquisitions and investments were made in the United States, Italy, Netherlands, and a lot of other places throughout the world. All of these investments have made Hyster a global leader in the forklift market. In 2009, Hyster celebrated its eightieth anniversary as an industry leader of materials handling equipment, which consists of more than three hundred assorted types of forklift trucks.

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