Hyster celebrates this year 35 years of production of forklift trucks in Craigavon, opened in Northern Ireland in 1981. The plant has a surface of 41,300 m2, manufacturing each year many thousands of different trucks with the vast majority exported to Europe, Russia, Africa and the Middle East. Among them, are internal combustion (ICE) trucks and electric forklifts, and the latest product, the Hyster XT series forklifts to be introduced into european production, for export across Emea.
“Our work at the Craigavon plant has helped to set standard for quality in manufacturing processes at Hyster-Yale’s plants across the globe”, said Jim Downey, plant manager (pictured on the right, with at the center Arlene Foster, first minister of Northern Ireland in visit at Craigavon). Principles of reliability, toughness and low operating costs increased over the years, with a continuous commitment and the introduction in 1995, for example, of the Demand flow technology method, later adopted in the plants all over the world, enabling to produce any truck everywhere according to customer’s requests. Over the years, the factory also won multiple awards for its commitment both to quality and to its staff, including achieving Investors in People gold award in 2014 and being crowned Best place to work in 2013. Technology innovation for energy efficiency and consumption optimization achieved at last in 2015 the ISO 50001 certification.