Budgeting For Forklift Maintenance

3 Areas To Review When Budgeting Forklift Maintenance

Like a forklift purchase, budgeting forklift maintenance is also part of your annual budget. While every company will have a unique cost based on their usage and application, three areas can assist you with budgeting:

Monthly Operating Hours

A maintenance program schedules service every 250 – 500 operating hours, depending on your application and work environment. By identifying the number of hours used by your forklift each month, you can determine the number of maintenance visits needed over the year. This total, multiplied by the cost per maintenance visit, will be the budget needed for your scheduled evaluations.

Last Year's Spend

Take time to review the past 12 months of invoices related to your forklift’s service and repair. For a fleet with multiple units, identify service costs per forklift. If there were no major repairs, use last year’s spending as a baseline budget. Then, considering factors such as forklift age, current hours, anticipated repairs, application changes, and other key considerations, apply a percentage increase to last year’s spending and include this total in your new budget.

Common Replacement Forklift Parts

Some components on your forklift will require a replacement schedule for normal “wear & tear”, including tires, forks, operator seats and lights. Budgeting for these forklift parts will be a short-term cost but a long-term benefit as your forklift and operators remain productive.

As a forklift ages, you will experience increases to your maintenance budget. Multiple breakdowns and high repair costs are an indicator the forklift is nearing replacement. It is recommended you set a maximum dollar threshold for service and repair costs to help you identify when the timing is best for your company.

Unplanned Expenses During A Forklift Breakdown

Forklift downtime can bring negative consequences to several areas of your business. While there isn’t a formula to calculate a money loss, you may experience these unplanned expenses during a forklift breakdown.

Cost Of The Forklift Operator

If operating the forklift is an employee's primary responsibility, they may be reassigned to another work area or sent home for the remainder of the shift. The associated costs include the operator's hourly wage and benefits.

Management Oversight

When a forklift goes down, your manager’s attention is diverted from the day’s planned tasks. Any time spent working to get the forklift running is a distraction from projects that focus on your company’s core business.

Employee Morale

Employee morale is an important cost to consider. When delays occur and workloads increase due to an unavailable forklift, stress and frustration can affect multiple team members.

Not every stop in production will be a large money or time loss – and even regular forklift maintenance will not prevent every breakdown, but a forklift maintenance program will improve the life cycle of your investment. It may also spot forklift service issues before they cause a breakdown. When a breakdown does occur, a forklift dealer partnership gives you access to trained technicians, replacement parts and short-term rentals.

ProLift service technicians are available 24/7. If your production needs support afterhours or weekends, dial our emergency service line at (800) 837-4020. Our sales consultants are also available to review our maintenance programs.