Quality in Everything We Do: Fork Trucks to Cranes to System Integration

Adam Cole | 27 September 2023

Conceptually, material handling is simple – store products and move products.

Officially defined by MHI as “the movement, protection, storage, and control of materials and products throughout manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, consumption, and disposal,” this concept is an unavoidable aspect of business. It also, like many ideas that start simple, quickly becomes complicated once you start exploring its details, especially given today’s rate of technological improvement.

Despite those challenges, however, the need to deliver on orders, navigate and succeed during peak seasons and meet customer expectations remains and needs to be addressed.

With a bewildering and growing array of technologies – everything from manual, low-tech solutions to cutting-edge automation like AI-powered robotic picking – the large number of options available to businesses are only getting larger. Selecting and integrating components from such a vast landscape to create a working material handling system is daunting. Creating a system that also adds value through cost reductions, space savings and productivity gains is even harder.

The logical solution for any business is to partner with integrators that have the capability to provide holistic solutions that expertly combine low-tech and high-tech products into a single value-generating system. This requires a thorough knowledge of a company’s operations – everything from pain points in current processes to growth expectations in the next 5-10 years. Without this knowledge, the result could be a suboptimal system, or, in the worst case, a system that detracts value (e.g., does more harm than good).

For every process, an application. For a challenge, a differentiator. For every company, a solution.

Unleashing Opportunity

Through the experience of Toyota’s decades-long dominance in the forklift industry, with the Toyota Material Handling Group (TMHG) of companies, a customer pain point kept emerging: the need for custom warehouse integrated solutions alongside forklifts, reach trucks and pallet jacks. Responding to this industry trend, Toyota sought top integrators across the globe to bring advanced automation solutions to their forklift customers.

For Every Challenge, a Solution

Today, Toyota’s portfolio of advanced logistics companies includes three world-class automation providers – Vanderlande, Bastian Solutions and viastore. Everything from traditional forklifts to state-of-the-art robotics is now available to customers, all under one roof. You can now, for example, get Vanderlande’s Adapto Shuttle, viastore’s stacker cranes and Bastian’s automated guided forklift all from a single Toyota contact, which, for many, is the Toyota dealer that already serves you.

On time, on budget, on target, with one goal in mind, quality in everything we do.

Delivery of Integrated Solutions

The future of material handling is the delivery of integrated solutions. Bastian Solutions, a Toyota Advanced Logistics company, brings customers automation technologies to meet any market challenge in North and South America, and India. Vanderlande and viastore deliver equal integration capabilities to these regions as well as European markets. Together, the Toyota family of companies’ partners, to empower business everywhere to release their full operational potential.

A Strategy for the Future

A strong culture of addressing customer needs, developing innovative products, and driving sustainable change, are how Toyota companies have been able to support customers in their varied needs across numerous industries. 

Toyota Advanced Logistics Group bought Bastian Solutions, a premier material handling independent integrator to bring brand agnostic products to clients who need a cohesive system that ties in a variety of technologies, from different vendors.

Through Bastian Solutions’ decades-long history in the warehouse space we know how overwhelming automation can seem. Helping clients choose solutions right for their system goals is our specialty. From reviewing existing operations to consulting on the creation of a new, more efficient workflow to meet defined objectives, our consultants and system integrators employ proven methodology to help you make data-backed, informed decisions on your operations and technology selection.

Author: Adam Cole