GREENE — The sun was shining brightly in the town of DeWitt on June 9 as Michael Field, CEO of The Raymond Corp., welcomed the assembled company employees, politicians, media, and friends to a ceremony. Once the speeches ended, the attendees witnessed the official ribbon-cutting event for the new Raybuilt Center of Excellence and enjoyed guided tours of the 90,000-square-foot facility at 6581 Chrysler Lane. More than 40,000 square feet are dedicated to re-manufacturing forklifts and their components, and the remaining space serves as a leasing center.

During the ceremony, the company also announced an expansion of Raymond’s service and parts-distribution facility located two miles away at 6650 Kirkville Road. The expansion will add another 40,000 square feet to the existing building. Raybuilt, created in 1991, is a division of Raymond, and currently remanufactures more than 18,000 components annually. 

“The creation of the new Raybuilt Center of Excellence will further support our continued growth, as well as support all of our customers’ evolving needs with end-to-end solutions — from forklifts to parts to leasing,” stated Field.

Industry growth

Since the “Great Recession” of 2008, Raymond Corp. has only experienced one thing — growth. When this reporter last interviewed the company’s VP for sales and marketing in December 2015, sales had increased 300 percent over the previous six years. The company was expecting to post sales of $750 million by year-end. Fast forward two years, and sales for 2017 are projected to approach $900 million. 

During my 2015 interview, I toured a newly completed 47,000-square-foot addition to the facility in Greene, which serves as Raymond’s headquarters and main production facility. The addition, which included a 60-foot-high testing bay, plus some reconfiguring of the manufacturing floor freed up 60,000 square feet of badly needed production space. Raymond has added another 200,000 square feet of warehousing space located just two miles from the Greene plant. Moving the inventory to the new warehouse provided more manufacturing capacity to meet the rising demand. Raymond also has a manufacturing facility in Muscatine, Iowa.

The Raymond Corp., a part of Toyota Industries’ material-handling group, is best known for manufacturing electrical, material-handling equipment. The range of lift trucks includes forklifts, pallet trucks, pallet stackers, sideloaders, reach trucks, swing-reach trucks, and order pickers. Some of the products come with vision-guided systems. In addition to manufacturing hardware, Raymond offers software products for fleet and warehouse operations.

According to the June 2017 edition of Modern Materials Handling magazine, the global-forklift market is expected to expand at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.9 percent through 2021. The industry market, valued at $35.3 billion in 2014, should spike to $55.9 billion four years from now. The article states that the primary drivers of this growth are the expansion of warehouse space, growing e-commerce business, strong demand for replacement units in developed markets, and demand for low-cost forklifts in emerging markets. The trend is especially favorable to Raymond, which sells more than 85 percent of its products in the U.S. 

A 2016 report by the Industrial Truck Association (ITA) shows strong demand for purchases in North America of electrical systems, masts and attachments, hydraulic components, structural weldments, and wheels and tires. The report also placed the U.S. fourth behind India, Mexico, and China for the fastest global-growth rate over the next three years. The ITA report goes on to show that U.S. factory shipments of forklifts — comprised of electric-rider, motorized-hand, and internal-combustion engine — reflect the growing demand for electric trucks over internal-combustion products.

Raymond’s growth and beginning

Field confirms the industry’s growth trend. “Our sales were up nearly 10 percent in fiscal-year 2017, and we expect continued growth this year,” says the company CEO. “E-commerce is pushing the need for more warehousing space, which means more forklifts. Not only is the demand for more forklifts growing, but the need for more pickers is also growing. Amazon has simply changed the way America does business. When a consumer’s option for a product was primarily limited to a bricks-and-mortar, retail store, distributors shipped pallets of material to the store which then put the items on shelves. Now consumers may order a toothbrush online, and the seller has to pick a single item out of inventory, package the order, and ship it. Many of our customers are transitioning from pallets to cases, requiring more frequent deliveries. While we’re pleased at Raymond with the growth trend and the acceptance of our forklifts, we’re also very pleased with the rate of growth of our software products, which is compounding at more than 10 percent annually. Customers are quickly realizing that labor costs represent 72 percent of all forklift costs over the life of the truck. That’s a real incentive to improve both fleet and warehouse management.”

The Raymond story began in 1922 when George Raymond, Sr., an efficiency expert, purchased the Lyon Iron Works in the village of Greene. The company manufactured cast-iron wheels, buckboards, and dollies for the agricultural and mercantile markets. The Iron Works owner serendipitously created the hydraulic, hand-lift truck for handling skids the same year when he went for a haircut at the barbershop adjacent to his business. According to his grandson, who related the story at the ribbon-cutting, Raymond, Sr. was fascinated by the barber’s new hydraulic chair. The barber was able to control all of the mechanical functions by virtue of a “joystick” side lever. What if he applied the same hydraulic principle to the dollies he manufactured? In order to understand how the chair worked, Raymond offered to buy one. The barber countered by renting him a chair for $10. As the story goes, Raymond dragged the chair next door, where he dismantled it and studied the hydraulic operation. When finished, he reassembled the chair and returned it to the barber shop.

More Raymond inventions followed. In 1939, Raymond, in collaboration with William House, patented the double-faced wooden pallet. In 1949, the company patented the concept of the narrow-aisle truck, an idea which was developed by Christian Gibson. The design eliminated the need for a counter-balancing chassis, which was characteristic of conventional forklifts. In 1959, the second generation of Raymonds to run the company continued new-product development with the introduction of the order selector, the Deep-Reach truck, the very narrow-aisle truck, the Swing-Reach truck, the Transtacker, and the narrow-aisle Pacer truck. The first computer-controlled drive system appeared in the 1980s, and an ergonomically advanced control handle was introduced in 1991. Today, Raymond Corp. holds more than 130 patents.

The Raymond Corp. today

Ninety-five years after Mr. Raymond’s fortuitous haircut in Greene, the original Lyon Iron Works is now a 600,000-square-foot sprawling complex plus the 200,000-square-foot distribution center on Route 12 just south of the village. The company occupies an additional 77,000 square feet in Greene and in Binghamton. The complex employs more than 1,700 people. The Muscatine, Iowa operation, which manufactures pallet trucks, comprises 200,000-plus square feet and employs more than 350. The DeWitt rebuild and leasing operations now utilize more than 80,000 square feet at the Raybuilt Center at Chrysler Lane, and the Kirkville Road service and parts center will boast more than 100,000 square feet when construction is completed. Together, the DeWitt operations employ more than 200.

“Two years ago, Greene was manufacturing more than 15,000 units annually,” intones Field. “We’re on target to produce more than 20,000 this year, and Muscatine will manufacture more than 25,000 electric units. In addition, the company will produce approximately 40,000 hand pallets. Companywide, I expect Raymond will corner a 15 percent market share of all North American [lift-truck] production. Measured against electric vehicles only, our share will exceed 20 percent. To meet these production schedules, the company is using more than 200,000 pounds of steel every day. Those production levels make Raymond a major contributor to Toyota’s $8.35 billion global-material-handling group (figures for fiscal-year 2015 revenue published in August 2016 by Modern Material Handling magazine). The company’s capital investment in plant and equipment just in the last three years totals tens of millions [of dollars].”

Attracting and retaining employees

Research & development

While much of Raymond’s capital investment is tied to plant and equipment, a major portion is reinvested in research and development. 

“In order to compete against major forklift manufacturers like Crown [Equipment] and NACCO, [which manufacture Hyster and Yale trucks,] Raymond needs to be on the cutting edge of R&D,” Field says. “The company employs 200 people in R&D-related activities and reinvests about 5 percent of its revenues annually. We work very closely with area universities, such as Cornell, Binghamton, RIT, and Clarkson, offering paid internships to attract students with high potential. Last year, Toyota Handling North America launched the TMHNA University Research Program, which seeks proposals from full-time, North American professors or researchers who are applying their engineering and technical knowledge to the material-handling industry. Toyota has committed $1 million annually, and the research output is shared with the industry. This program is just the latest example of our commitment to foster more innovation to grow our industry as well as the company.”

Skilled workers

Attracting and retaining employees in the research and development department is just one challenge faced by this world-class manufacturer located in a rural setting. 

“While attracting outstanding engineering talent is essential, we can’t turn out a product without assemblers, welders, machine operators, material-handling workers, electricians, painters, maintenance technicians, quality managers, and many more,” confides Field. “We compete for our talent by offering very competitive salary-and-benefit packages, tuition assistance to advance employees’ education, a family-friendly environment, and opportunities for advancement in a fast-growing company. Our human-resources department is proactive in supporting local and regional job fairs and works closely with area BOCES and high schools sponsoring on-site tours and programs. On National Manufacturing Day, we draw hundreds of students to the [Greene] plant to promote technology and engineering careers. Raymond has an outstanding cadre of employees, but … [my hat is off] to the executive team that ensures that everyone works together to consistently produce quality products.”

“At Raymond, we like to say that we don’t just build lift trucks; we offer solutions,” continues Field. “That means we’re an innovator focused on solutions for a customer’s entire operation. To accomplish this, we often reach out to industry partners such as Seegrid, which specializes in vision-guided vehicles. The result is a standard Raymond lifttruck with both man-on and man-off automated functionality. A lifttruck equipped with the vision-guided system doesn’t require lasers, tape, wires, or additional infrastructure to operate, and the automated lifttruck can learn up to 15 miles of routes in unlimited configurations. Raymond has also created a strategic alliance with Brammo [Inc.] to develop lithium-ion, alternative-energy solutions. We showcased our walkie-pallet jack last year, another example of our end-to-end warehouse solutions. Raymond is working closely with our trade associations and with NY–B.E.S.T. (New York Battery & Energy Storage Technology Consortium), funded by an initial $25 million seed-grant from NYSERDA. Robotics and energy are two major areas of our corporate concentration.”

Field grew up in the greater Syracuse area and attended the Rochester Institute of Technology, earning a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1986. He added an MBA in international-management operations in 1995 and a master’s degree in manufacturing-systems engineering the same year, both from Boston University. Field joined Raymond in January 2004 as the VP of engineering. The company designated him as CEO in April 2015.

If George Raymond, Sr. returned to Greene today, I think he would be delighted that his name was still on the business. But I don’t think he would be surprised by the expansion of the company. Raymond, Sr. liked to tinker with new ideas in pursuit of efficiency, which translates into productivity for customers. The 130-plus company patents are testimony to the Raymond Corp.’s commitment to innovation. And I’m sure he would approve of the company motto: “Run better, manage smarter.” If Field and Raymond, Sr. were to meet, it probably wouldn’t be in the local barber shop, but rather in the R&D department in Greene where the two could talk about lithium-ion batteries, robotics, fuel cells, fly wheels, software systems, and more.

And best of all, the two could talk about Raymond’s bright prospects for continued growth.          ν