As the market for rough terrain forklifts has emerged so has the demand for straight mast forklifts. Their emergence and demand has leveled over the last ten years thanks to explosion of telescopic handlers. Presently, manufacturers of forklifts are focusing their product development on the core function of the forklift.
Like for instance, models which offer a lift capacity of less than 6000 pounds on average are up to 2.45% to a little more than $46,000. Other equipment in the category's bulk class ranging from 6000 pounds to 10,000 pounds in capacity are up 3.15% to $54,177. Machine buyers would rapidly point out only if their real costs are up ever so slightly.
With models which rely on diesel fuel, hourly costs in those 2 classes have increased 81.6% and 84.3% respectively. Even if the prices on the dealer's tag might not seem all that different, once the machine has left the sales yard and enters the work space of the customer, it must produce on a large scale.
Over the past decade, the rough terrain forklift market has waned due to the increase in telescopic-handler purchases. The telescopic handlers are may just be the future that this particular type of machinery is evolving to. The telehandler's task is placing a load with a long reach. The rough-terrain forklift continues to be the heavyweight champ when it comes to pure grunt lifting.
Omega is a multi-line manufacturer that provides a whole range of rough-terrain forklift families. They have established the Mega Series, consisting of larger vertical-mast models. These units offer lifting capacities which vary from 8000 pounds all the way up to 20,000 pounds. The next step was to allow lifting capacities up to 50,000 pound and the HERC Series was developed to do this task. The more complex and bigger equipment needed, the more specialized that OEMs such as Omega become.