Moving and Lifting Dusty (and Heavy) Cement Bags Is Easy Work for the EFG 425KFor over 16 years, A.W. Cook Cement Products, Inc. has produced blended and special order cement products of the highest quality for the U.S. market. Located in Hoschton, GA, in
the north part of the state about 35 miles northeast of Atlanta, the company is privately owned, with about $50 million in sales and 20,000 sq. ft in plant area. For years, the firm has been using a fleet of six LPG trucks rated at a 6,000 pound lift capacity to maneuver and hoist pallets of bagged cement ingredients and finished cement
formulations weighing almost 3,000 pounds. Lift heights go up to 15 feet. However, when their forklift sales and service center went out of business, they contacted Complete Lift Service Incorporated. Says Complete Lift’s sales rep Danny Andrews, “For six or seven months after we stepped in, I urged Cook to just give Jungheinrich forklifts a try. Unannounced, I drove an EFG 425K to their plant floor – it’s an 80V three-phase AC technology 4-wheel counter balance truck, with a 5,000 pound lift capacity and a 185 inch mast. I left the truck with them so they could check it out.” He adds, “Late the next day, Mark Nations, Cook’s plant manager, called to inquire about the truck. It turns out the EFG had given his crew about 16 hours of work on a full charge, loading out ten or twelve trailer truck loads of 2,800 pound pallets. Their loadmaster was actually refusing to use the old 6,000 pound rated LPGs again. The next day Cook bought the EFG 425K outright.” A.W. Cook Cement learned that the EFG 425K offered many advantages. The air in a cement plant is full of powder and dust that can clog the motor in a DC truck or the engine radiator in an LPG truck. But the three-phase AC motor in a Jungheinrich truck is completely sealed from grit, powder and even moisture. Being sealed also means the truck can move easily from indoor to outdoor tasks with no harmful effect to the motor from the elements. Mark Nations thinks there are even more benefits to using threephase AC electric power over an LPGpowered forklift: “I feel it’s safer than LPG – that’s the feature that probably clinched the deal for me. No fuel tanks, which I consider dangerous, and no fumes.” He adds: “Even the operating cost is lower. Overall, I think what Jungheinrich offers is just a lot better vehicle than our LPG trucks. The EFG 425K has performed so well, I won’t hesitate to replace the rest of my fleet with Jungheinrich trucks as the leases expire on our older vehicles.” Click here for more information on EFG 425 trucks | 
