For more than 30 years, wood wholesaler Holz Tusche, based in North Rhine- Westphalia, has been using Hyster forklift trucks.

“With us, forklift trucks are being pushed to their limits every day,” said Ralph Tusche, managing director of Holz-Tusche GmbH & Co KG, where 5.6 x 2.07m wooden decorative panels must regularly be lifted to heights of more than six metres for storage.

“The lifting height and the size of the panels means that a particularly rigid triplex mast is required on the forklifts,” added Andreas Wiegers, managing director of Hyster dealer Wiegers Gabelstapler.

“The sturdy triple mast also has the advantage of fitting through entrances and doorways in the company’s old warehouses when it is retracted,” he said.

Eight hundred different designs

Holz-Tusche caters for around 800 different wood panel designs, primarily used for shop, kitchen and furniture construction. In addition, there is a range of solid and sawn timber boards, as well as parquet wood for various purposes.

Established in 1934, Holz-Tusche invested in new cutting lines in 2011 and these can now be used to process materials of up to 5.6m.

The business took over an 11,000m2, air-conditioned warehouse in Marsberg, in 2013 and just one year later, a fully automated storage area, with capacity for up to 21,000 wood panels, was put into operation. Here, the wood panels are stored and picked using automatically controlled vacuum cups, making it is possible to deliver the products on demand, as quickly as possible.

Logistics

The extensive company premises, including the warehouses, have particular logistics demands. The forklifts sometimes have to travel long distances, for instance, and must also be constantly ready for use.

A total of 17 Hyster trucks form the backbone of the logistics operation and since 2010, the fleet has gradually switched from diesel to LPG fuel.

To prevent the gas from running out, the Hyster trucks in the fleet are equipped with two gas bottles so the operator can switch to the new bottle immediately when it is needed.

“We’ve been thinking for years about the use of zero-emissions electric forklifts to protect the environment and the performance of forklifts equipped with lithium-ion batteries is particularly interesting to us,” said Mr Tusche. “However, at the moment we lack space in our premises to create the necessary infrastructure for charging this type of forklift truck.”

Therefore, until the changeover to electric forklift trucks occurs, 10 Hyster H4.0FT lift trucks are responsible for warehouse logistics, and for loading and unloading 18 in-house lorries.

Customer care

Hyster dealer Wiegers Gabelstapler has been supporting Holz-Tusche for more than 20 years and provides servicing for the Hyster lift trucks.

“Service is very important to us,” said Mr Tusche. “Quick response times, transparent reporting around service and costs, and good customer care from Wiegers Gabelstapler are all crucial, because we cannot afford downtime.”

The Hyster Fortens forklifts with a four-tonne lifting capacity and a load centre of 600mm are designed to be robust enough to cope with the harsh conditions in the wood wholesaling industry. The DuraMatch gearbox, for example, prevents abrupt braking and regulates the direction of travel to protect brakes and tyres.

Punctuality and quality count

Timber products arrive at Holz-Tusche from Germany, Austria, Poland and elsewhere in the world. When stock arrives, it must move fast, and the lorries must be unloaded immediately.

Three additional larger Hyster forklifts are on site to enable loads up to 5.5 tonnes to be handled. After unloading the lorries, the wooden panels are taken either direct to the storage area or to the cutting area.

“Due to very high stock availability and a wide, yet specialised, range, we can deliver orders within a 200km radius very quickly – from laminate panels to 18m long planks,” said Mr Tusche.

“We also have a large capacity in our own cutting line, so we can cut wood to our customer requirements directly on site.”