Toyota Material Handling Completes North America Integration Process

Toyota this week announced the completion of the integration process between Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing and Toyota Material Handling USA into a single business unit to better serve customers and increase overall synergy.

Michael Roth

Jan. 8, 2020

2 min read

Toyota Forklift Outside Horiz Shot 2018 5e1660ebc5f96

The move combines Toyota’s forklift manufacturing operations with its sales, marketing, and distribution functions. The company remains headquartered in Columbus, Ind., where the Toyota Forklift brand has been manufactured since 1990. TMH is led by president and CEO Jeff Rufener, vice president Tony Miller and senior vice president Bill Finerty.

Toyota has been the No. 1 selling forklift brand since 2002, the company said.

“Toyota is more committed than ever to being a complete material handling solutions provider,” Rufener said. “The integration of TIEM and TMHU will allow us to simplify, streamline, and strengthen the entire customer experience. Integrating our teams will improve the flow of information to and from our customers so we can deliver exactly what they need when they need it.”

Integrating the two business units is the next step in a process that started in 2014 when TMHU completed a three-year relocation of its headquarters from California to Indiana. The integration process occurred progressively throughout 2019.

“We’re already seeing results, and we’re just getting started,” Rufener said. “The results have been gratifying in terms of the attitudes of our associates, and also in the tangible improvement and efficiency in our business. The world is changing faster every day, and our business has to change with it. Standing still is simply not an option. Combining our companies is another step forward on that journey.”

About the Author

Michael Roth

Editor

Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.