Raymond Corporation, Toyota Material Handling to integrate

GREENE, N.Y. — The Raymond Corporation, which Toyota Material Handling acquired in 2001, will fully integrate with Toyota into one company under the name Toyota Material Handling North American (TMHNA) effective April 1, the companies recently announced.

“We’re combining into one functional corporate organization,” says Michael Field, current president and CEO of Raymond. The company, headquartered in Greene (Chenango County), manufactures fork trucks and provides material-handling and intralogistics solutions. Raymond and Toyota will both keep their unique brand identities. Combining the corporate functions under one parent company will have little effect on the firm’s plants in Greene; Columbus and East Chicago, Indiana; and Muscatine, Iowa, except to improve efficiencies, says Field. “It gives us an opportunity to move even faster than we were before,” he explains. Rather than having separate corporate engineering departments, for example, which operate independently, one unified engineering department can work faster with combined resources to create the next innovation in materials handling. The integration will amplify the similarities between Raymond and Toyota Material Handling and create a unified DNA stronger than each individual company had, he adds. Under the integration, both the Toyota and Raymond president responsibilities will combine into TMHNA under the leadership of Brett Wood as president and CEO. Wood also serves as a senior executive officer for TMHNA’s parent company Toyota Industries Corporation (TICO). “This is a historic day for our company, customers, dealers, and associates,” Wood said in a press statement. “Our customers’ needs are evolving rapidly, and we must prepare and adapt to an ever-changing market. We have an amazing opportunity to leverage the best people, processes, and products into one unified organization. We want to become the undisputed industry leader in solving our customers’ problems through innovation for decades to come.” Current Toyota Material Handling President/CEO Bill Finerty will retire at the end of March, and Field will become chief operations officer of TMHNA. Field is excited to take on the new role. “I get to put together all of the pieces and make sure they function correctly,” he says of the tasks ahead of him in the coming months. He will remain based in Greene, where Raymond employs 2,000 people across its Central New York operations. Along with the Greene plant, Raymond operates the Energy Solutions Manufacturing Center of Excellence in Kirkwood and has a location in the Syracuse area. The integration won’t result in any layoffs, and TMHNA plans to invest more in its workforce to accelerate growth. “Our goal isn’t to reduce our workforce, but rather to bring together the strengths, resources, and talent from throughout our organizations,” Wood said. “Together, we will create a more dynamic, more resilient organization. We will continue to invest in the growth and development of all our associates.” TMHNA has more than 16,000 employees, produces more than 1,900 Toyota and Raymond forklifts each week, and generates annual revenue topping $6 billion. The company broke ground late last year on a 295,000-square-foot factory across the street from its headquarters in Columbus, Indiana to produce electric products to drive down lead times. The project was coupled with a $50 million investment into buildings, infrastructures, and equipment-elevated operations in Greene and Muscatine to optimize the manufacturing process.