As 2016 comes to an end, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on one of the most exciting years in the 53-year history of Takeuchi.
We are extremely proud of the growth and innovation we’ve achieved over the past year with your help and support. Before we turn our focus to 2017, let’s recap some of the highlights of the successful year gone by.
Opened New Warehouse, Office Space
We completed work on a new warehouse and doubled our office space. The new warehouse provides additional machine and parts storage that will increase our distribution capacity by 40 percent to support growth.
Grew Staff 25 Percent
With new opportunities coming to Pendergrass, we increased our staff by 25 percent, positioning our team to better meet the needs of dealers and customers in the years ahead.
Held Sales Training
In September, we held a sales school on the Takeuchi campus that provided equipment training for 200 sales personnel. Attendees worked closely with Takeuchi experts to learn more about our machines and gain insight to better serve their customers. The event was a total success.
Formed Global Training, Marketing Departments
We launched new global training and global marketing departments. Now we can better serve our global market by providing the latest technical training and marketing to our subsidiaries and distributors around the world — not just in the U.S.
Launched Takeuchi Fleet Management (TFM)
In August, our version of telematics — Takeuchi Fleet Management — was available at all of our local dealers and standard on select Takeuchi excavators and track loaders. Our new monitoring system checks the health of Takeuchi equipment with real-time machine information.
TFM enables maintenance on the Takeuchi machines to be proactive rather than reactive, saving customers time and money. This is one more solution in our initiative to serve our end users better.
Introduced Vertical Track Loaders
We kicked off the year with a big announcement when we launched the TL12V2 track loader. Not only is the TL12V2 the first vertical lift model in our lineup, but it is also the largest, most capable vertical lift track loader in the industry. We followed up this significant introduction by releasing our mid-size TL10V2 in October.
Both of the vertical loaders provide increased lift height and greater balance over the radial models. They have been well received by dealers and customers alike. In addition, we were able to take the TL12V2 to this year’s Rental Show, which generated a great deal of excitement around the product.
Released Other New Models
The two track loaders were not the only machines we introduced this year. We also introduced the TL12R2 track loader and TB2150 excavator in October. The TL12R2 delivers more operating capacity over our previous radial machine, while the TB2150 is the largest, most proficient excavator in our lineup.
All four of the new models we unveiled in 2016 were built with the four pillars that Takeuchi strives for with every machine: performance, durability, serviceability and operator comfort. Take a look at our website or talk to your local dealer for more information on our new machines.
All signs point to another strong year for Takeuchi in 2017. Optimism is already brewing in the compact equipment industry as the segment is forecasted to grow 7 percent on the strength of continued growth in rental and a strong housing market.
We will hit the ground running with two big trade shows in the first quarter: The Rental Show in Orlando and CONEXPO-CON/AGG in Las Vegas.
With 2016 winding down, we would like to wish you a happy holiday season and a Happy New Year. We hope to see you at the shows – Clay Eubanks, President at Takeuchi-US.