Loren Swakow is managing director of Noblelift North America, a China-based forklift manufacturer that hired Swakow in 2016 to bring the brand to the U.S. and Canada. He has since overseen the spinoff of Noblelift Canada into a separate entity with 30 dealers. Noblelift currently has 115 dealers in the United States as well as dealers in Mexico and Colombia.
A life-long Chicagoan, Swakow was president of Scott Lift Truck in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, from 1977 to 2012. He holds a business degree from Carthage College in Wisconsin and an MBA from Northern Illinois University. Swakow is a past president of MHEDA (the Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association) and past president of CITDA (Chicago Industrial Truck Dealers).
Q: How would you describe the current state of the material handling industry?
A: The material handling industry in America continues to flourish. E-commerce requires a lot of products to be moved continuously. We can see our brick-and-mortar stores continue to disappear. Americans are consuming online.
This requires efficient distribution centers. I believe they are driving the market. They need material handling equipment in volume. They require frequent deliveries to keep their stock levels optimum. These trucks coming in are all loaded with material handling equipment as well. The industrial buildings are getting taller to make the most of a smaller footprint. This requires a new style of lift truck that can reach up to 400 inches. This, in turn, requires the owner to buy new equipment. A lift truck that can go up to 400 inches is cheaper than the land to expand to hold extra product.
The wide acceptance of lithium power as the preferred source of energy is driving the market as well. Lithium batteries generally have a 10-year warranty. There are electric trucks that can have 50-degree gradeability. Cleaner, no maintenance, fast charging, opportunity charging, etc. are pushing the electric and internal combustion market to lithium. We are seeing higher and higher capacities as well. With the continual drop in lithium pricing out of China, the lithium lift truck is competing in price with the lead acid truck—we are seeing many cases where lithium can even be less expensive at initial purchase point. Leasing companies see this and are increasing residuals on lithium trucks. A five-year-old lead acid truck needs a battery. A five-year-old lithium truck still has five years of warranty left on the battery.
I feel these two issues—e-commerce and lithium—are keeping material handling growing at a rate faster than the economy.
Q: You have been in the lift truck industry since 1977. What major changes have you seen during your 45-plus years in the business?
A: Some of the biggest changes I’ve seen center on the safety of the driver and the pedestrians in the work area. Blue lights, strobes, headlights, and so forth used to be options. Now they are standard equipment. This helps protect the pedestrian, especially as we move to electric trucks, which are quieter than internal combustion units. The addition of a rear horn button so the driver can sound the horn without having to take his eyes away from the direction of travel is also helping to warn pedestrians of an oncoming vehicle.
Driver safety has been improved greatly as well. Seat belts, including those with ignition lock-out, are common. Speed reduction in turns is standard, reducing rollovers. Speed reduction with forks in the air also helps stabilize the truck. The advancements in safety are removing driver error from the equation and saving lives.
I have also seen the advent of OSHA certification, a justifiable requirement to drive a lift truck. The ergonomics of the lift truck have seen major advances as well. Driver comfort is important. Adjustable steering wheels are standard. Seats have greatly improved too, with multiple settings to adapt to each driver. When I think about the seats we were selling in the 1970s, I wonder how the driver could sit in them for hours at a time. Monitors in the dash now give the driver access to information on the machine’s operating condition.
The second major change I have witnessed would be with electric lift trucks, primarily Class I. We have moved from carbon pile, to contactors, to rectifiers, to solid state—all with the goal of reducing heat production in electric lift trucks and increasing efficiency. Heat is lost energy. The drive motor has seen major improvements as well. From DC to AC, with AC having the ability to put power back to the battery. These new motors also have a very long life span compared to electric motors with carbon brushes.
Electric lift trucks were slowly eating into the market share of internal combustion trucks. Now with the advent of lithium and all its attributes, I expect that replacement of IC trucks by electrics to increase. Lithium is here to stay. We are also seeing higher voltage in lift trucks compared to the 1970s. We have an 80-volt 5,000-pound truck that has twice the voltage of the old 36-volt electric truck. Again, higher voltage is more efficient and has less heat output and longer run times. All of this in a smaller configuration. We are using a lithium iron compound, the most stable and safe compound on the market.
Q: How have telematics and real-time information technologies affected lift truck operations?
A: Information gathering and dissemination has always been an important topic for American business. Telematics came into vogue when the large distribution centers with hundreds of lift trucks needed to keep track of their fleet—not only monitoring the location of the trucks but also tracking critical maintenance and operational information. This can be reviewed in an office without having to inspect the lift truck. This also prevents a lot of major repairs by noting an issue before it becomes crucial. Fleets of lift trucks are expensive. Fleet management is paramount to protect that investment.
With today’s large buildings, you need communication with the driver. Coming back and forth to the office is terribly inefficient. Lift trucks now come with USB ports to power communication devices or tablets, making the drive more efficient. Real-time information sharing between management and the driver promotes efficiency and saves both fuel and time, which translates into money for the owner.
Q: Noblelift has seen tremendous growth in recent years, with sales projected to rise 25% in 2023. To what does your company owe its success?
A: The product is exceptional. Our warranty cost compared to revenue is less than one-half of 1%.
When Noblelift first offered me the job in 2016, I turned it down. I had never heard of Noblelift, and I had a preconceived notion of Chinese quality. They asked me to come over for an interview. After I had personally seen the quality of the workmanship and rigorous inspection processes, I readily accepted the position. I will admit, I was extremely impressed with the quality control and high-tech manufacturing with robotics. I also found out they were building products for many well-respected OEMs, many of which I had represented at one time or another.
Our dealers felt the same way. They would give it a try, as I was offering free returns with no restocking charge. They discovered the same quality and slowly began to embrace the brand. We felt strongly that the brand needed to be promoted, and we have been marketing to achieve that.
China also put a bonus plan in place that promotes our team, so we are all pulling in the same direction. Last year, this amounted to 18% of pay. Morale is good, and financials are shared. We measure ourselves against the previous year’s month. We compare October of 2023 against October of 2022. This format takes cycles out of the comparison and I believe is a good measure of our consistent growth. We have been surpassing the previous year’s month [in terms of performance] on a regular basis for over four years now. With the addition of new products on a regular basis, I expect double-digit growth to continue for years to come.
