Improving the quality of the Navy's material handling equipment (MHE) fleet with special emphasis on forklifts at Naval Supply Centers

Abstract

Reliable and readily available MHE is vital to all large scale military supply, maintenance and transportation operations. Therefore, the need to improve the quality of the Navy's MHE fleet cannot be over-emphasized. The current MHE inventory quality is poor and methods for improving this quality are essential. This thesis considers the Navy's forklift trucks because they comprise a large majority of the MHE fleet. A review of current MHE management policies, maintenance concept and plan, and replacement methodology is provided. Next, the current status of Navy forklifts at the eight Naval Supply Centers is analyzed to determine the average age and over-age of MHE, the compliance with DOD MHE replacement criteria, utilization rates and the extent of economically obsolete MHE. The results of this analysis showed that a significant percentage of these trucks are over-aged and economically obsolete. The DOD criteria need to be replaced by the private sector approach for determining the economic life of MHE.